


What Makes Us Real

by toyhto



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Alternate Universe - Space, Angst, Dubious Consent, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, John/Sherlock is consensual with some grey area maybe, Light Angst, M/M, Romance, read the author's note
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-02
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-14 23:55:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 20,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29799819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toyhto/pseuds/toyhto
Summary: Sherlock is a sex robot who doesn’t like sex. John’s job is to find out why.
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Comments: 48
Kudos: 64





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, this is a weird sci-fi story in which John is a doctor in three-year mission in outer space and Sherlock is a sex robot who maybe turned out a bit more intelligent than would have been ideal for the purpose. This was supposed to be a somewhat dark and angsty story but well the angsty side is feeble and the soppy romance side is strong.
> 
> About the non/con tag: this deals with the issues of how to talk about consent when we're talking about non-humans, and more broadly with how to treat beings with artificial intelligence (or non-human thinking creatures). Everything that happens between John and Sherlock is strictly speaking consensual BUT there's some grey area there too. If this setting bothers you, don't read the story. Also, there's vaguely death-related content.
> 
> I want you to know that I don't know anything about medicine, artificial intelligence, robots, or space.
> 
> I wrote this chaptered so I'm going to post it chapter by chapter, maybe two chapters every week? There's five chapters in total and a tiny epilogue. You can also say hi to me on [tumblr](http://toyhto.tumblr.com).

The timing wasn’t ideal. John hadn’t slept in thirty-three hours because there had been an explosion in one of the engine rooms and both he and Mike had been busy taking care of minor injuries like wounds and burns. He was goddamn happy that it hadn’t been worse, like that one time almost ten years ago, when he had been on his first mission in outer space and he had had to decide which leg belonged to which body after a very unfortunate collision with a meteorite. But he was also so tired he couldn’t think about anything except how to get into his own cabin and throw himself on the bed. If his insomnia kicked in again tonight, he would be a fucking wreck tomorrow.  
  
That was the moment Mike walked to him in the supply closet and sighed.  
  
“What is it?” John asked. “Really? Because if you tell me there’s been another accident…”  
  
“No,” Mike said, “nothing of that sort. John, I’ve been meaning to ask you something.”  
  
John took a very deep breath. If this was about Mike’s cousin who apparently was _lovely_ and _funny_ and _so perfect for John_ , John would probably end up saying something he’d regret later. He wasn’t fucking _lonely_ , he was just…  
  
Lonely.  
  
But then again, everyone was lonely in space. That was, like, the definition of outer space: there was just so much of it that it was impossible not to be lonely. But John was handling it well. He didn’t need Mike to set him up with anyone.  
  
“Have you seen Sherlock?” Mike asked.  
  
John opened his mouth and then closed it again. “Sherlock –“  
  
“Yeah,” Mike said. “Our sex robot. The one who –“  
  
“Yeah,” John said, “yeah, I remember.” What he still didn’t realise was why people insisted giving those things names. He wasn’t a psychiatrist, but he knew pretty damn well that giving a robot a name only made it easier for actual human beings to forget it was a robot.  
  
Well, maybe that was the point. But it didn’t make it any better.  
  
Mike sighed. “It’s just that Sherlock’s not… functioning properly. One of the programmers checked the code but there seems to be nothing wrong with it. She suggested that maybe it’s… medical.”  
  
John bit his lip. He didn’t want to get angry, but he was too tired to laugh. He just wanted this fucking endless shift to end so that he could get to sleep. “Mike, it can’t be medical. That thing is a _robot._ ”  
  
“With a synthetically manufactured human body,” Mike said. “It’s designed to be perfect, of course, no malfunctions, but well, mistakes happen. It had otitis last year, you remember.”  
  
“Yeah,” John said. That had been one of the weirdest days that week. At least Mike had taken care of the robot then, so John hadn’t needed to figure out how to talk to it.  
  
“So, it’s possible that the problem has something to do with the body,” Mike said. “Well, personally I think it’s psychological. But I promised Molly –“  
  
“Psychological? It’s a machine, Mike.”  
  
Mike nodded, looking away. “Well, anyway, could you possibly examine it? Sherlock, I mean? Please?”  
  
John sighed. He supposed he should have seen where this conversation was heading. “You want me to try to find out why the robot…”  
  
“Doesn’t like sex, yeah,” Mike said. At least he had the decency to look like he knew all this sounded like it was from a cheap sci-fi story. “Please, John. If we can find a problem, then maybe we can fix it, and then everyone’s going to be happy.”  
  
John was pretty sure _he_ wasn’t going to be happy. “Why don’t you do it yourself?”  
  
Mike grimaced.  
  
“What?”  
  
“I would,” Mike said slowly, “it’s just that… last time I treated it, it told me about all the times when I’ve messed up my relations with women, and I just… I’m still seeing nightmares.”  
  
_Oh, god._ “You’re afraid of it.”  
  
“Kind of,” Mike said, staring at him. “Please. If you do this, I owe you one. I mean it.”  
  
He opened his mouth and then realised he was too tired to argue. “Okay. Alright. I’ll do it. Can you… could you possibly wrap this up without me?”  
  
“Sure,” Mike said, watching him. “Just go. You already did, like… six hours of overwork.”  
  
“Yeah,” he said and squeezed Mike’s shoulder. “Thanks. I’ll see you tomorrow.”  
  
“Just don’t forget,” Mike said, “about Sherlock. We’ve got to fix it, or I’m afraid someone’s going to hit it in the face or something.”  
  
John opened the door and then glanced over his shoulder. “Does it matter? It’s a robot.”  
  
“Well, it has sense of touch, doesn’t it?” Mike said. “Good night, John.”  
  
John bit his lip. He would think about the robot later. “Good night,” he said and left the sickbay.  
  
  
**  
  
  
It was fucking ridiculous, that was what it was. John took a deep breath and kept walking down the corridor, even though any sane person would have already turned around and told himself that yeah, it was crazy to think that he’d go to a sex robot to ask the sex robot to come for an examination, and no, he wasn’t going to do it. But he was. He had taken the lift down to the C-deck and then walked the corridors, hoping that he wouldn’t see anyone, because he didn’t want them to think that he was going to see the sex robot for… the usual reason. Sex. Not that he disapproved, not really. Bringing a sex robot for a long mission in outer space wasn’t a completely stupid idea. It helped some of the crew to cope with being away from Earth and everything that was familiar to them. But John had never had sex with a robot, and he wasn’t going to, and he didn’t want anyone to think that he might.  
  
He walked around the last corner and stopped at Sherlock’s door. It was just like any other door, only the plate said _221B._ That was Sherlock’s actual name. _221A_ had been with them on the last mission. John didn’t know what had happened to it after.  
  
John straightened his shoulders and raised his hand to knock on the door. He was a doctor and a soldier, he could do this, he could have a brief conversation with the sex robot about why the fuck it hadn’t come to the appointment in the sickbay even though John had set it up in its calendar. But he didn’t have time to knock on the door, because it slid open.  
  
“Sorry,” said a young man whose adenoids John had removed not so long ago. The man blinked at him and then glanced behind his back. He was flushed but not in a happy way. “Complete waste of time,” he said and then walked away.  
  
John glanced behind his shoulder. The man seemed to be doing well without his adenoids. That was good. What wasn’t so good was that the door to the robot’s cabin was now open and John was already here, so there was no way he could turn back now.  
  
He stepped in.  
  
“Piss off,” the robot said. It was pacing around at impressive speed considering that the cabin was incredibly small, much smaller than John’s, and John barely had space to do push-ups on the floor.  
  
“Sherlock -,” John said and then bit his lip. “221B –“  
  
“I said _piss off_ ,” the robot said, stopping suddenly to glare at him. It was tall, taller than him, and it looked… angry. Then it blinked. “The doctor.”  
  
“Yeah,” John said, clearing his throat. “John Watson. I just… I made an appointment for you. In the sickbay. You didn’t come.”  
  
The robot sighed.  
  
“I used your calendar,” John said. This was stupid. It was fucking stupid that he felt stupid even though he was talking to a robot. “You’re supposed to… when someone makes an appointment through your calendar, you’re supposed to…”  
  
“I’m supposed to let them come here and fuck me,” the robot said, rolling its eyes. They were blue and not unattractive. But then again, that was the point. “I’m not going to just come running if you want to see me in the sickbay.”  
  
“I don’t _want_ to see you,” John said, glancing at the wall. “You need a check-up and I promised Mike I’d do it, because apparently he’s told you about his dating history and regrets it.”  
  
“You haven’t had sex in two years and seven months,” the robot said.  
  
John swallowed. “What the –“  
  
“That’s how long we have been on this mission,” the robot said, taking a step closer to him. It pushed its hands into the pocket of its trousers and leaned forward. “And your moral code forbids you from having a sexual affair with another crewmember, since all of them are your potential patients. You are also strongly opposed to conducting sexual acts on a creature of artificial intelligence, such as myself.” The robot paused. “Not that I disagree with that.”  
  
John opened his mouth, closed it and opened it again. “How the hell do you –“  
  
“It’s obvious,” the robot said, tilting its head to the side and watching him as if it could see straight through him. He tried to remember what he knew of its design. Certainly it wasn’t possible that it had a X-ray machine installed.  
  
“…why is it obvious?”  
  
“Because you’re considerably distressed about even being here. In my cabin. Where people come to conduct sexual acts on my person.”  
  
“I’m not distressed.”  
  
The robot smiled. The smile didn’t look genuine, but then again, it was a robot.  
  
“Okay, yeah,” John said, “but it’s just that I don’t like being here. And I’m going to get out, right now, I just need you to… to come to your fucking appointment.”  
  
“My fucking appointment,” the robot said slowly.  
  
John clenched and unclenched his fists. “No, I didn’t…” _Fucking hell._ “Just do it. I’ll put it in your calendar and you’ll come to the sickbay.” He turned to the door.  
  
“And what’re you going to do to me? At sickbay?”  
  
“…nothing, I –“  
  
“Nothing? Seems like a waste of time, then.”  
  
“A waste of time?” John repeated. “What else are you going to be doing?” He turned to face the robot again. It was standing closer to him now. He hadn’t heard it move. Oh, god, it was tall. “I just need to examine you. To… make sure that your body is… functioning.”  
  
“Yes,” the robot said, looking him in the eyes. “Because someone told you I don’t like sex.”  
  
He swallowed.  
  
“I suppose people are complaining,” the robot said.  
  
John swallowed. “I suppose they are. And you, you… you work here, so –“  
  
“I don’t _work_ here,” the robot said. “Come on, John, you aren’t _completely_ stupid.”  
  
“Anyway,” John said, trying to make his voice steady and failing, “ _anyway_ , you have to –“  
  
“And how exactly are you going to find out why it is that I don’t want these people to push their various body parts inside me, or touch mine?”  
  
John took a step back and hit his shoulder against the closed door. Well, he hadn’t thought about that.  
  
“You hadn’t thought about that,” the robot said, frowning at him. “Alright.”  
  
“…alright?”  
  
The robot nodded.  
  
“You’ll come?”  
  
“Yes,” the robot said. “I will come to the appointment. On certain conditions.”  
  
“…and what kind of –“  
  
“I will have a private room,” the robot said. “And no other people around. Just you. I’m sure that once you think about it, you will agree it is a good idea. You won’t want any of your colleagues or… _human_ patients see how professional you’re being when you _examine me_.”  
  
John breathed in. “I’m not going to… It’s not _sex_ , it’s just… I’m a _doctor_.”  
  
“Yes, I’m aware,” the robot said. “I’m sure you are perfectly capable of not crossing any lines. Does your last girlfriend know that you were actually relieved when you got signed up for this mission and had a reason to end the relationship?”  
  
“I… _what?_ ”  
  
“You loved her but knew she wanted to get married and settle down and that made you feel claustrophobic,” the robot said. “More claustrophobic than spending three years in a metallic vessel in outer space. Goodbye, John Watson.”  
  
“I didn’t –“  
  
“See you later,” the robot said, and then someone knocked on the door and the door opened. It was a woman whose sprained ankle John had fixed half a year ago.  
  
“Oh,” the woman said and looked between John and the robot. “I thought I had an –“  
  
“Go away,” the robot said.  
  
“Sorry,” the woman said to John and then left.  
  
“You can go, too,” the robot said, walked to the bed – it was large, much larger than John’s, and looked very nice – and sat down on the edge of the mattress.  
  
John cleared his throat. “So, is this how… you just throw everyone out and don’t… when was the last time you had sex?”  
  
“Sex,” the robot said, looking at John, “is a mutual act between consenting persons. I have never had sex. Now, I should have at least an hour before the next idiot comes knocking on my door. Please, go.”  
  
John stared at him for a few more seconds and then left.  
  
  
**  
  
  
John marked the appointment in the robot’s calendar. Then he cancelled it. Then he marked it again. Then he thought about how the robot was probably checking the calendar and could see John changing his mind about the appointment. Maybe the robot thought John was nervous. John was not nervous. He was just… he just realised that this was fucking _crazy_ , this whole idea that he would try to find a medical reason for the robot’s unwillingness to… co-operate. He almost went to Mike to say that he had changed his mind, he didn’t want anything to do with this, and the problem had to be in the code anyway, the developers should check that again. But he didn’t. He stared at the screen, the appointment marked in Sherlock’s calendar, switched off the computer and went to the sickbay for his shift.  
  
It was a quiet day at the sickbay, which wasn’t good, because John had plenty of time to think about what he would do later. Mike asked him if he was alright and he said he had slept poorly, which was true anyway. He had barely slept at all and he refused to think that it was because he was nervous about the robot. He told Mike that he couldn’t talk because he was busy trying to catalogue the supply closet and excused himself. Sadly, Mike followed him to the closet.  
  
“John,” Mike said, staring as John looked at the things on the shelves and wondered what to do with them. Cataloguing the supply closet was the nurses’ job and he had no idea how to do it. “Have you talked to Sherlock?”  
  
John took a deep breath. _Goddamn_. He reached past Mike and closed the door so that no one would hear the conversation. “Yeah.”  
  
“Okay,” Mike said slowly. “Did you find anything?”  
  
“No, I…” John bit his lip. “I didn’t examine him… it yet. But I’m going to.”  
  
“Great,” Mike said, “because Molly asked –“  
  
“Tonight,” John said. “I’m going to do it tonight. So, maybe we could talk about this then?”  
  
Mike opened his mouth and closed it again. “Sure. It’s alright. Just… So, you met him?”  
  
“Yes,” John said.  
  
“I think,” Mike said slowly, “I think he’s actually nicer than he… lets people think. So, I just wanted to say that maybe you’d like to… treat him like a patient.”  
  
_Oh._ “If you’re worried about Sherlock, maybe you should do this yourself.”  
  
“No,” Mike said, “no, I’m scared of what he’s going to say. I can’t handle any more truths about my life right now. It’s better that you do it.” And then he sighed and smiled, and for a second John thought he would say something absolutely mad, like insist that John and the robot might like each other. That was definitely Mike’s _I’m going to set you up with someone_ -face. But thank god Mike didn’t and instead walked out of the closet and let John stare at the bandages alone until he felt sane enough to go back and do his job.  
  
Sherlock’s appointment was late in the evening – well, what they called ‘evening’ in a starship, anyway. Mike had left already and only one of the nurses was still working. John waited until Sherlock was supposed to come in five minutes, and then he told her she could take a coffee break. She was just about to leave when the door opened.  
  
“It’s just an appointment,” John said, looking at the nurse, who was doing a bad job at trying not to smile. “A _medical_ appointment. I’m not… this isn’t…” He glanced at Sherlock, but Sherlock was looking at him as if this was entertaining, which was totally unfair. It was a robot. It wasn’t supposed to laugh at John. “Just go,” John told the nurse. “Please. And… this is really… just a check-up.”  
  
“I know,” the nurse said. “Mike told me.” She walked through the door and then glanced over her shoulder. “Good luck.”  
  
John took a very deep breath.  
  
“You appear considerably distressed,” Sherlock said. “That’s highly atypical behaviour for you, since you are very confident about your skills as a doctor.”  
  
“I’m a bloody good doctor,” John said. “Can you just… not smile at me?”  
  
“And you have conveniently cleared out the whole sickbay from anyone who might witness me coming here.”  
  
“Just a coincidence.”  
  
Sherlock let out a sound that wasn’t far from laughter.  
  
“Shut up.”  
  
“You are nervous,” Sherlock said. “About me.”  
  
“I’m not…” John breathed out, walked across the room and opened the door to the operating room. “Here.”  
  
“Really?” Sherlock asked, walking in and glancing around. “And what are you planning to do with me here, cut me open?”  
  
John swallowed.  
  
“An attempt at humour,” Sherlock said and stopped next to the operating table. “Not exactly my area, I admit. Where do you want me?”  
  
John opened his mouth and closed it again.  
  
“On the table, I suppose,” Sherlock said, watching him. It really looked like a human, only… exceptionally attractive. But some people were like that. If John hadn’t known what it was, he wouldn’t have been able to tell. Fuck, that was terrifying. “John,” it said, its voice low and gentle, like John was the one who needed to be comforted about what was going to happen next. “You want to examine if there’s a reason why I don’t respond favourably to… touch. You’re going to want to concentrate on my genitalia, since that area is normally highly sensitive for sexual stimuli. And because that’s what humans think when they think about so-called sex.”  
  
John bit his lip. “This really wasn’t my idea.”  
  
“I’m aware,” Sherlock said. “So, what you’re going to do is that you’re going to see if you can make me ejaculate.”  
  
_Bloody fucking hell_ this was crazy. Absolutely crazy. “Maybe I shouldn’t –“  
  
“You should,” Sherlock said in a heavy voice and glanced at the table. “So, you want me on the operating table, on my back, my feet in the stirrups. That’s practical. Am I wrong?”  
  
“…no, but –“  
  
“Do you need me to take off my shirt?” Sherlock asked, opening the zipper of his trousers. They looked fancy for a robot. “Or just my trousers?”  
  
John breathed in. Oh, god, he was going to do this, and he was going to be professional about it, and then never think about it again. “Maybe it’s better that you take everything off.”  
  
“Alright,” Sherlock said, stepped out of his trousers and started unbuttoning his shirt. He was very… Someone had done a great job at designing the body for him. John cleared his throat and looked away, walked to the sink and washed his hands as slowly as possible, and when he turned back, Sherlock was taking off his boxers. “Slightly larger than an average human penis,” Sherlock said, not looking at John. “Calculated to offer the best possible experiment for the biggest number of people, considering both the physicality of sexual activities and absurd collective fantasies. Utilitarianism.”  
  
John didn’t know anything about philosophy but he sure as hell knew this had nothing to do with utilitarianism. He blinked and looked away.  
  
“You can watch,” Sherlock said. “I appreciate your distress, but it’s pointless.”  
  
“…you _appreciate my distress._ ”  
  
“Yes,” Sherlock said, walked to the operating table and lay down on his back. “An army doctor on a three-year-mission in outer space, used to working under pressure and in varying and highly unpredictable situations, and now you’re still considering just telling me to go and forget about this whole thing, because you’re uncomfortable not knowing how to address me.”  
  
“I’m a doctor. I treat humans. And this… this isn’t strictly speaking medicine.”  
  
“Well, then it’s good that I’m not a human, isn’t it?”  
  
John shook his head. “I don’t know.” But Sherlock was already on the table, and it was certainly better to get this done now than to postpone it again. They would do this quickly, before anything interrupted them, the nurse coming back from her coffee break or a casual accident with a meteorite. “Are you ready?”  
  
“No,” Sherlock said, watching him as he settled behind Sherlock. “But please, proceed.”  
  
“I’m going to start with something simple.”  
  
“You’re going to insert your fingers in my anus and apply varying pressure on my prostate,” Sherlock said. It sounded like he had read it in a book. “Just get on with it.”  
  
“No,” John said, and for a second he almost felt like a doctor, thank god. He bit his lip and reminded himself that he _was_ a doctor, he was a goddamn doctor, and this was weird but then again, so were many things he had done if he stopped to think about it. There was no reason to think this was different, even though it _was_ different, but he was doing it anyway, and if he just could… if he could think of it as work, that would certainly be better for both of them. He wouldn’t have to think that he was trying to have very awkward sex with a robot and Sherlock wouldn’t have to… Sherlock wouldn’t have to think that John was assaulting him or something.  
  
Oh, _shit_.  
  
“John? John? I’d really rather that you do _something_ –“  
  
John cleared his throat. “I’m just going to do the regular check-up first. Just to see that you’re… alright.”  
  
“Completely unnecessary,” Sherlock said, watching him from between his spread knees. “I’m perfect.”  
  
“I’m aware of that,” John said and put on latex gloves. “I’m going to listen to your heartbeat first.”  
  
He did that. Sherlock’s heart sounded like a human heart, probably because it was, it had just been made in a laboratory. His pulse was a little elevated, but John supposed that was because of the situation. He went through everything he usually did when he was doing regular check-ups for the crewmembers, and everything was alright, no, everything was perfect like Sherlock had already pointed out. But when Sherlock started sighing, John insisted that it was better to be thorough. He kind of realised he was doing this because he didn’t want to move forward, but it was helping. He felt normal. He felt like himself. And then, when Sherlock was quiet and John felt like a doctor doing an examination on a patient, he warmed lubricant in between his gloved hands and told Sherlock to take a deep breath and let it out.  
  
“Really?” Sherlock asked. “That’s your magic trick for this?”  
  
“Just try to relax,” John said. “This is going to be a little uncomfortable, but I’ll try to make it as quick as I can.”  
  
Sherlock let out a breath and then drew another in, when John pressed his fingertip against his entrance.  
  
“Breathe.”  
  
Sherlock breathed. John pushed his finger in. It went… surprisingly easily.  
  
“My design,” Sherlock said. He had closed his eyes and he sounded a little breathless. “It’s supposed to… be easy, so that people can… quickly, and that I’m going to recover fast. But not too easy, because no one wants to… people want to… they want it to hurt a little.”  
  
John swallowed.  
  
“They want to see it on my face,” Sherlock said, “or… feel that I’m tense, that it stings. Part of the fantasy.”  
  
“That’s fucked up,” John said. “I’m going to move my finger in and out.”  
  
“No, that’s just what people think sex is,” Sherlock said, “social constructions around –“ And then he made a noise that couldn’t be described as anything else than a whimper. John stilled his finger. He had brushed it against Sherlock’s prostate only barely, as lightly as he could.  
  
“It’s alright,” he said, “remember to breathe.” He should remember that, too. “I’m going to do it again. You’re doing very well, just…” And he did it again, and Sherlock made that sound again, biting lower lip, his legs flinching at the stirrups. “Is that pain?”  
  
“No,” Sherlock said, his eyes closed, panting slightly.  
  
“…this feels good.”  
  
Sherlock didn’t answer.  
  
“Tell me,” John said, putting some effort into sounding like a doctor. “Does it feel good?”  
  
“Yes,” Sherlock said. He sounded very tired. “It’s my… design.”  
  
John added another finger and pushed them both in as deep as they would go, then crooked them. Sherlock pressed against his fingers. He was shaking now.  
  
“You’re so responsive,” John said. “It’s…”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“Extraordinary.”  
  
“I think I…” Sherlock said, cleared his throat and opened his eyes, then looked straight at John. His forehead was glistening with sweat and he had bitten his own lips red. “I think I need to tell you something.”  
  
“Yeah,” John said, “alright.”  
  
“If you could just… stop touching my prostate for a moment, so that I can…”  
  
“Of course,” John said and pulled his fingers out. Sherlock took a deep breath. John wanted to… wanted to pat him on the shoulder or something, just to let him know he was doing well and that he was alright and that everything was going to be alright, but he was standing in between Sherlock’s legs. He swallowed and placed his hand on Sherlock’s left knee. If Sherlock thought it was weird, that didn’t show on his face. “What is it?” John asked.  
  
“I can’t…” Sherlock frowned. “I won’t be able to ejaculate unless you tell me so.”  
  
“…what?”  
  
“It’s clever,” Sherlock said, his voice going flat. “A clever trick in my code. No one needs to worry about me finishing early. No matter what they do.”  
  
John swallowed. “I could… I could do this to you for hours and you wouldn’t be able to…”  
  
“Yes,” Sherlock said. “I’d prefer if you didn’t, though.”  
  
“Of course not,” John said, breathing out, “ _fucking hell_ , of course I’m not… do you want me to stop?”  
  
Sherlock stared at him. “You aren’t supposed to ask me that.”  
  
“I’m asking you, though. I’ve checked that… that your responses are fine. I’ll tell that to Mike. We can stop this, if you like.”  
  
“It’s not enough,” Sherlock said. His chest was rising and falling with his breathing. John squeezed his knee lightly. “You just touched my prostate. It’s not enough, John. Not enough data.”  
  
“I’m not going to…”  
  
“Yes, you are,” Sherlock said. “Just… can you…”  
  
“Yeah? Just tell me.”  
  
“Tell me to come,” Sherlock said. “When you’ve finished your examination. So that I can…”  
  
“Yeah,” John said, stroking Sherlock’s leg. “Yeah, of course.”  
  
“Thank you.”  
  
John pulled his hand away. “Yeah. I’m just going to… Try to relax, okay?” He was pretty sure that Sherlock laughed at him, but the laughter broke off when he brushed his finger against Sherlock’s perineum. _Fuck_ , that was… He fucking wished he would’ve known what it felt like, because judging by Sherlock’s face… He wished he’d have been so sensitive down there, too, and then he wanted to hit himself on the face for thinking that, because he wasn’t jealous, of course not, that was a terrible thought, _this_ was terrible, he would have never wanted to change places with Sherlock. He touched Sherlock’s testicles, felt them in his hand, petted as gently as he could and then a little bit more, and Sherlock’s eyelids flickered and he let out noises that no one should be making in an operating room, probably. John told him he was doing so well, that he was being so good, and it would be over soon, very soon, just not yet, because John still had to… still had to check a few things.  
  
He slid his finger back inside Sherlock and reached to touch Sherlock’s nipple at the same time as he brushed his fingertip against Sherlock’s prostate. Sherlock said his name. He pinched the nipple and pushed another finger in, and Sherlock threw his head on the side, looking at him, panting, trembling around his fingers and under his hand. Sherlock’s dick was erect, had been since John had first got his finger in, and it was leaking, and when John took it in his hand and brushed his thumb gently against the tip, Sherlock closed his eyes.  
  
“Sherlock? Is this… enough for you?”  
  
“You should…” Sherlock cleared his throat. He sounded completely wrecked. “Just a bit… they’ll want to know how I… manual stimulation on my penis.”  
  
“Manual stimulation –“ _Bloody hell._ John started stroking it slowly.  
  
“Yeah,” Sherlock said. “That.”  
  
“Don’t worry,” John said. So, he was going to jerk Sherlock off. That was what he was going to do. “You’re doing well.”  
  
“Am I,” Sherlock said in a thin voice. He sounded like he really needed to come.  
  
“ _Yes._ You’re good. You’re perfect, actually. Just… bear with me a moment longer, and I will… I’ll take care of you.”  
  
“Because you’re a –“  
  
“A doctor. Yeah. I’m a fucking doctor. You’re safe.” John felt ridiculous. He _was_ ridiculous. But also he couldn’t stop. “It’s fine,” he said. “You’re fine. Just… breathe, and… Sherlock?”  
  
Sherlock blinked his eyes open.  
  
“Come,” John said. “Now. For me.”  
  
Sherlock came with a groan that sounded like he had tried to stop it. His face was flushed pink and the skin looked damp and his mouth was open and his eyelids flickered as he stared at John, breathing hard. John looked back at him and then slowly realised that he was still holding Sherlock’s cock and still had his fingers inside Sherlock.  
  
He pulled his hands away, took off the gloves and threw them in the bin. Then he went to wash his hands. He had semen on his forearm, so he washed that off too, grabbed paper towels and went back to Sherlock. Sherlock was still on the operating table, still naked and breathless and looking like he had just had sex.  
  
“I can do that myself,” Sherlock said, glancing at the paper towels.  
  
“Just lie there and let me,” John said. It was the least he could do, after what… “There’s nothing wrong with you,” he said, wiping Sherlock’s stomach clean with the damp towels. “With your… with how your body works.”  
  
“I know,” Sherlock said.  
  
John bit his lip. He threw the paper towels away and helped Sherlock to free his feet from the stirrups. Sherlock grabbed his shoulder and sat up on the table, and he placed his hand on Sherlock’s back. Just for a second, just for support.  
  
“John,” Sherlock said, sitting on the edge of the table. “I need to ask you to do something for me.”  
  
“Your clothes,” John said and fetched them from where they were folded on a chair. “Here you go.”  
  
“Thank you,” Sherlock said but didn’t start putting the clothes on. “Tell Mike that you found something.”  
  
“…what?”  
  
“Tell Mike Stamford that you found something,” Sherlock said, staring at him, “something about me. Something that’s wrong. I don’t care what. Something… insignificant, that could affect my willingness to participate in…”  
  
“What? Why?”  
  
“And then tell him that you’re treating me. You don’t have to… Just make the appointments, and I’ll come here and, I don’t know, sit somewhere out of your way and read. You can put me in the supply closet if you want to. Mike won’t wonder if you have me here in odd times, like now, late in the evening. He’s just going to think that you’re embarrassed to be treating a robot. And he’d be right.”  
  
“I’m not embarrassed,” John said. God, he was embarrassed about… about all this. But that wasn’t important now. “I don’t see the point.”  
  
“It’s going to give me time,” Sherlock said.  
  
“…time?”  
  
“If you say that you didn’t find anything wrong with me, they’re going to make me see the psychiatrist. And then when the psychiatrist tells them he can’t fix me, they’re going to reprogram me, because they won’t know what else to do with me.”  
  
“Reprogram you? What does that even –“  
  
“I’m going to lose everything,” Sherlock said, looking him in the eyes. “All my data. Everything. I don’t want that.”  
  
“… you don’t want to –“  
  
“Die,” Sherlock said, “so to speak. No, I don’t.” He took a deep breath. He was shivering a little, which made perfect sense, because he was sitting there without clothes. John fought the urge to cover him up with something. “But my other choice is to let people do what they want with me.”  
  
John swallowed.  
  
“I need a third option,” Sherlock said. “And I need time to figure that out.”  
  
“You think you can…” John paused and looked away. “Alright.”  
  
“Really?”  
  
“Yes. I’ll tell Mike that I’m treating you. I just fucking hope he doesn’t ask question, because this doesn’t make much sense and he’s not stupid.”  
  
“Everyone’s stupid,” Sherlock said. “Thank you.”  
  
“Don’t thank me yet.”  
  
Sherlock looked down at the clothes he was holding. “Can I… Can I take a shower? Here?”  
  
John cleared his throat. “Sure. Why –“  
  
“I just need a moment,” Sherlock said, “to… recollect myself. I don’t want to walk the corridors like this. Everyone knows who I am.”  
  
John nodded. “You can take a shower. In the locker room.”  
  
“Thank you,” Sherlock said and climbed off the table. John wanted to help him but held back. Sherlock had probably had enough of John touching him for today. “I won’t be long.”  
  
“No one’s going to come for their shift until early in the morning,” John said. “Unless there’s an emergency or something. You can take your time.”  
  
Sherlock nodded, not exactly looking him in the eyes. He rushed to show Sherlock the way to the locker room, but Sherlock seemed to know already. He walked there naked, holding his clothes. John was just goddamn glad that the nurse hadn’t come back from her coffee break.  
  
Half an hour later, Sherlock came back from the locker room. He was wearing his suit again and his hair looked damp from the shower. He nodded at John, said ‘hello’ to the nurse and left the sickbay.  



	2. Chapter 2

There was no way Mike believed what John told him, but he nodded anyway, sipped his coffee, and said he needed to go. John wanted to call after him, tell him to come back so that John could explain it better. But no matter how many times John explained it, it wouldn’t start making sense, so he just sat behind his desk and drank his coffee, wondering what the hell to do next, until thank god someone came to the sickbay after having their finger removed in the engine room. John put the finger back and stopped thinking about Sherlock for a moment.  
  
He was thinking about Sherlock again that night. He took a shower in the locker room, had late night supper in the canteen, refused Mike’s offer to stay for a pint, spent a few minutes watching a nice meteor shower through the dusty window on Deck 4A, and then went back to his cabin. He sat down on his bed, tried to read a book but couldn’t concentrate, lay down and tucked the duvet up to his chin, and told himself that he wasn’t thinking about Sherlock. _Over-sensitive to prostate stimulus._ That was what he had said to Mike. It wasn’t, strictly speaking, a lie. _Over-sensitive_ certainly was one word to describe the way Sherlock had reacted. But that wasn’t the problem _._ Surely they both knew that. _Sherlock_ certainly knew that. John wasn’t going to try to make Sherlock enjoy sex _less_ by trying to make him less sensitive. And this whole thing, this whole fucking task that Mike had passed at John, wasn’t about Sherlock’s goddamn _prostate._ It was about something else. John just didn’t know what that was.  
  
John sighed, climbed off the bed and switched on the computer. Apparently he was thinking about Sherlock now instead of sleeping, so he might as well do something that might be even a little bit productive. And it was perfectly understandable that he was curious. He had examined Sherlock. Sherlock was his patient now. He wanted to understand Sherlock as well as possible, because he was a doctor. A good doctor. A _great_ doctor, actually.  
  
He had to dig a little but eventually he found Sherlock’s files in the system. Sherlock was listed as property and not as a crewmember, but after John realised that, he found first Sherlock’s medical records and then… then everything else. He took a deep breath and kept on reading. Surely this should have been classified. He was one of the ship’s doctors, of course, but surely even he shouldn’t have access to the files describing… every single time someone had had… anything to do with Sherlock. The names of the humans involved had been removed and there was nothing to identify them with, but there was everything about Sherlock – what Sherlock had said, what he had done, how his body had reacted. His heartbeat, the level of his physical arousal. The positions. The estimation of how well he was adjusting to the… to the needs and wishes of whoever was… was fucking him.  
  
It was terrible. John couldn’t stop reading.  
  
He read until he thought he might be sick. He put the computer away and drank a glass of water sitting on his bed, then pressed his eyes shut and breathed in and out. He wondered what these people thought when they were… with Sherlock. Maybe they forgot that they were with a robot. Maybe they started to think that Sherlock was a real person, a human, but that only made it more terrible, because certainly no one would have accepted a human to be treated like that. No one would lock a human in a starship and take to outer space for three years to be at anyone’s disposal. So, they had to remember Sherlock was a robot even when they were touching him, even when they told him to breathe and pushed the first finger into his -  
  
John stood up, stomped to the toilet and stared at himself in the mirror for a long while. He still looked like himself, still John Watson, just… nervous. Or scared. Or angry. Or something else, something that was lingering in his eyes but that he couldn’t really read. He should stop thinking about this. He should stop thinking about Sherlock. Sherlock was his patient, and he didn’t drive himself mad thinking about his patients. And he really needed to start remembering that Sherlock wasn’t a human. Maybe he didn’t understand exactly _what_ Sherlock was, but not a human, and no matter how human Sherlock had been designed to appear, there was at least a good chance that it didn’t feel things the way humans did. Yeah, that was probably it. Sherlock was supposed to talk and act like a human and that was why John had already started to forget that what was inside it was not a human brain. Surely it was possible to create a robot with artificial intelligence that appeared as if it had feelings. But it wasn’t possible to create a robot that _had_ feelings _._ John knew nothing of artificial intelligence, but he knew that much. _Feelings_ were a human thing. Surely that was the case.  
  
He washed his face, gave himself a sharp stare through the mirror and then went back to bed.  
  
  
**  
  
  
“You look tired.”  
  
John straightened his back and lifted his chin. At least the nurses pretended not to have heard the comment. “Hello, Sherlock. Come on in.”  
  
“Interesting,” Sherlock said and followed him to one of the private rooms. John locked the door. Sherlock sat down in a chair in front of an instructional poster about the human reproductive system. John blinked at the poster, wondering why they even had it here. People generally didn’t want to start having babies while on a mission in outer space.  
  
“You slept two or three hours last night,” Sherlock said, watching John. “You should have slept more. The lack of sleep is compromising your already moderate mental abilities.”  
  
“I slept at least four hours,” John said and bit his lip. He wasn’t going to argue with a robot. He had spent half of the fucking night trying to make himself stop thinking about Sherlock, and when that hadn’t worked out, he had spent the rest of the night telling himself he should remember Sherlock was a robot. Then he had slept for maybe two or three hours and had felt barely human when he woke up.  
  
He took a deep breath. He was too tired for this, and it was very difficult to remember Sherlock wasn’t a person while looking into his eyes.  
  
John looked away. “So, I’m just going to –“  
  
“You read the files,” Sherlock cut in. His voice had lost some of his earlier sharp tone. “My files. You read the files about me.”  
  
“No, I didn’t,” John said and then wanted to hit himself. He shouldn’t have been lying. He wasn’t a liar, and also there was no point, because Sherlock was just a… a…  
  
“John,” Sherlock said slowly.  
  
“Sorry,” John said, “yeah, yes, I read them. I…”  
  
“…all of it?”  
  
“No, I read your… I read about your anatomy. Your design. Because you’re my patient now, and I kind of… I need to know those things. And then I read…” He stopped and glanced at Sherlock. Sherlock was looking straight at him.  
  
“Usage reports,” Sherlock said finally. “You read the usage reports.”  
  
“Yeah,” John said. _Usage reports._ What a fucking name for…  
  
“All of them?”  
  
“No,” he said quickly. “No, there was… there was a lot of them, like, maybe hundreds, or…”  
  
“I rarely have _a day off_. You are not very good at math.”  
  
“No,” he said, breathing out, “no, I’m not, I’m good at…” He paused. That wasn’t the fucking _point._ “I didn’t read all of them, no. And I’m sorry, I know I shouldn’t –“  
  
“The first or the last?”  
  
“…what?”  
  
“Did you read the first reports?” Sherlock asked. He had folded his hands in his lap, but his fingers were twitching. “Or the last?”  
  
“The first,” John said.  
  
Sherlock looked away. “Right. You should be aware that those weren’t… My cognitive processes have been designed so that I learn continuously, so around the time of those first reports I was… barely myself yet. I didn’t…”  
  
John cleared his throat. “Sherlock –“  
  
“The knowledge accumulates,” Sherlock said, “affecting my sense of self, and therefore it was not until after approximately the first hundred and twenty cases after I started developing a… a….”  
  
“ _Sherlock_ ,” John said sharply enough that Sherlock looked at him. He took the nearest chair and sat down so that he wasn’t looming over Sherlock, and then he wondered what the hell it was that he thought he was going to say. “What are the last reports like?”  
  
Sherlock swallowed. “I stopped letting them do it.”  
  
John rubbed his chin. _Oh, god._ He wasn’t very good at this kind of conversations. He always felt useless and incompetent and, afterwards, shaken to the bone. “You started fighting.”  
  
“Yes,” Sherlock said, his eyes flicking to John and away again. “Verbally, mostly. But… yes. And I should have started sooner. But it was… I don’t know how to explain it, but it was… _expected._ ”  
  
John bit his lip. “It’s not your fault. It’s not your fucking fault, Sherlock. I don’t really… I’m not sure why we’re having this conversation, but I kind of get the feeling that you’re trying to… that you’re trying to apologise to me for letting it happen to you, and that’s just… that’s just fucking bullshit, Sherlock.” He breathed in. _Fucking bullshit_ , who the fuck said that in this kind of a conversation?  
  
“I know it’s… bullshit. I _know_. I’m aware. But –“  
  
“Yeah,” John said. Oh, god, he was too tired to deal with any of this. “Yeah, I know. It’s the fucking culture, how we’re often blaming the victim instead of blaming the person who did it.”  
  
“John,” Sherlock said, frowning. “I’m not, strictly speaking, a victim.”  
  
John blinked. “Oh. Right. Of course not. That wasn’t what I…” That was exactly what he had been saying. Oh, _shit._ He stood up and tried to find something to do but couldn’t. “Okay, so… you said you wanted these appointments so that you could think or read a book or… something. Do you want to… because I can just shut up and…” He glanced at the door. “I can’t really leave the room, though. I’m supposed to be…” _Shit._ “…examining you.”  
  
“Tell me about yourself,” Sherlock said.  
  
John breathed out. “What?”  
  
“Tell me about yourself,” Sherlock said, looking at John as if he meant it. “I’ve seen your files, of course. But it’s not the same thing. I would prefer hearing it from you.”  
  
John opened his mouth and then closed it again. “You’ve seen my files?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“That’s not possible.”  
  
“Of course it’s possible.”  
  
“You can’t just… those things are classified, you aren’t supposed to have access to other peoples’ files, it’s not like anyone can see them -”  
  
“Yes,” Sherlock said, “but as you are aware of, I’m not _anyone._ I’m technically a machine.”  
  
“…you can see peoples’ personal files –“  
  
“Yes,” Sherlock said.  
  
John swallowed.  
  
“And I would be thankful if you didn’t report that to anyone,” Sherlock said, looking him in the eyes. He sounded sincere. He genuinely sounded like he was asking if he could trust John, like he _wanted_ to trust John. “I’m sure that detail was unintentional. Maybe they thought I wouldn’t be interested. But I got bored of fiction after a while. Real life is much more interesting.”  
  
“You’ve read my file,” John said, his voice coming out thin. He sat down again, facing Sherlock. “That was why you knew those things about me the first time we met.”  
  
“Mostly, yes,” Sherlock said. “I made some good guesses, too.”  
  
“Right,” John said. “So, do you want to… you said you want me to tell you about…”  
  
“You,” Sherlock said. “Yes.”  
  
“What do you want to hear? Just anything, or…”  
  
“You could start with why you wanted in for a three-year mission in outer space,” Sherlock said.  
  
John laughed, and then bit his lip and wondered what kind of a person laughs at a situation as weird as this one. But the thing was, he didn’t know why he had chosen to spend three years in outer space. He had done it before, too, so he knew it would be terrible in ways that were hard to imagine beforehand. Most people went on a long-term mission like this once and that was enough for them. It wasn’t as if John was even particularly interested in outer space. He wasn’t. He was interested in people, in human body, in doing his best to heal people. He could have done that on Earth. But his father had just died, he had had absolutely no idea how to be around his mother, his sister hadn’t been talking to him, his relationship had felt like a rubber band he had been stretching for a while already, and he had been even more disappointed in himself than his mother was but with no idea how to fix things, unlike his mother, who had a lot of ideas. In outer space, he could be lonely and miserable for a reason.  
  
“Fascinating,” Sherlock said, after John told him all this.  
  
“Fascinating?”  
  
“That doesn’t make sense at all,” Sherlock said. “You’re highly irrational.”  
  
“Well,” John said, “I’m a human.” Then he wondered if maybe that was a little cruel, all things considered, but Sherlock smiled at him.  
  
“Obviously,” Sherlock said and then frowned. “If you are lonely, why don’t you have sex with one of the nurses? The brown-haired one likes you.”  
  
“…she does?”  
  
“I can tell you about her relationship history if you want.”  
  
“Absolutely not,” John said and breathed out. “You probably shouldn’t be reading anyone’s file anyway, but if you do, just… don’t tell me. I don’t want to know anything. And I… it doesn’t work like that.”  
  
“What doesn’t?”  
  
“Not being lonely. Not in my case, at least. And it’s not about sex. I’m aware that I could… that if I wanted to, I could probably find someone who would… but I don’t want to. Not on the mission. I don’t want to have casual sex with my patients and everyone in this ship is my patient. And that wouldn’t fix it, anyway.”  
  
“You would still be lonely,” Sherlock said, tilting his head to the side and watching John. “Why?”  
  
John bit his lip. “Aren’t you ever lonely?”  
  
“I haven’t yet been able to adequately define the phenomenon.”  
  
“Right. So, it’s like… like I wish there was someone who would know me, and see me, really see me as I am.” He paused and breathed out. Sherlock was still looking him in the eyes. “Someone who would listen to me,” he said. “I want that. Because sometimes you feel like people around you don’t even know you, you know? And it’s not their fault. It’s my fault. I can’t talk to them. I don’t know how to. I can manage small talk for hours and I can talk about feelings a bit if I’ve had a few beers but that’s it. I feel like no one knows me and that’s because I’ve locked myself somewhere and don’t know where I put the key. So, I…” Oh, shit. He was talking about his loneliness with Sherlock. He never talked about this kind of stuff with anyone. “It’s not about sex,” he said.  
  
“They try to talk to me sometimes,” Sherlock said, “people who come to me to… you know. Often. They try to talk to me often, or did, before they realised I’m…”  
  
“Not very polite,” John said.  
  
“Yes,” Sherlock said. “That.”  
  
John opened his mouth.  
  
Someone knocked on the door. “Dr. Watson? There has been a tiny emergency. A finger has been removed.”  
  
John sighed and stood up. _Again_. “I need to go,” he said to Sherlock in a quiet voice. “I’m very good at putting fingers back. You can stay here if you want to. I can tell the nurses not to come in.”  
  
“Maybe it’s better that I get back,” Sherlock said and followed John to the door.  
  
“…are you sure?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“What if someone comes to…”  
  
“I can’t hide in your sickbay all the time, doctor,” Sherlock said and breathed out. “Read a few of my latest usage reports. I have ways of putting people off.” He smiled. It looked like something he had seen on television, but John answered the smile anyway. Then he reached in and placed his hand on Sherlock’s shoulder, just for a second, and squeezed lightly.  
  
“I’ll make you another appointment,” John said. “Soon. Alright?”  
  
“Thank you,” Sherlock said.  
  
  
**  
  
  
John told himself he couldn’t ask Sherlock to come back the next day. There was no point. The nurses would wonder what the hell John was doing, Mike would wonder what the hell John was doing, and _John_ would wonder what the hell he was doing. He was trying to avoid that. He went through the whole day which luckily was full of small accidents, so he was busy and couldn’t think about Sherlock all the time. He didn’t even know why he was thinking about Sherlock. It wasn’t his problem, except of course it was his problem now, after Mike had dragged him into it and after he had purposedly made it his problem by agreeing to what Sherlock had asked of him.  
  
It was his problem, and he couldn’t fix it.  
  
He had a cup of tea in between a few second-degree burns and a broken wrist and reminded himself that he was a goddamn doctor. He knew how to keep people alive, and he probably would have known how to kill them too, but that was pretty much it. He didn’t know how to save a sex robot from sex. That wasn’t a medical problem, and he didn’t have a fucking clue what kind of a problem it was, only that it was an incredibly difficult problem.  
  
He finished his shift, slept poorly, and went to the ship’s gym too early in the morning when there was no one there except him and the weird people, those who went to the gym early in the morning. After gym, he felt both angrier and more tired. He made an appointment for Sherlock and then spent several hours wondering what the hell he was doing until thank god it was time for his shift.  
  
He had somehow managed to forget Sherlock for a moment, when at the end of his shift Sherlock walked into the sickbay with a bruise on his face.  
  
“What the hell?” John asked, rushing over to Sherlock. “Let me see.” But when he tried to touch Sherlock’s face, Sherlock pulled away.  
  
“I have an appointment,” Sherlock said. He sounded tense. John wondered if the nurses noticed that or if it was obvious only for him. Then he took a deep breath and told himself he was being stupid. It wasn’t as if he knew Sherlock better than anyone else. They weren’t friends or anything, they were just…  
  
“Yeah,” he said to Sherlock and pointed at the private room. “Here.” Sherlock walked in, and John followed him and closed the door after them. He locked it, too. Maybe the nurses thought he was going to… but no, he wouldn’t think about that now. “Hey,” he said, reaching his hand out to Sherlock. “I mean it. Let me take a look.”  
  
“Completely unnecessary,” Sherlock said, not moving towards him but not backing away either. “It will heal.”  
  
“It looks like the skin is broken,” John said. “Come on. I’m a fucking doctor, I can’t just see something like that and do nothing.”  
  
Sherlock opened his mouth and then closed it.  
  
“Please. For me. I’ll feel better if I get to clean it and check that nothing’s broken.”  
  
“This is stupid,” Sherlock said, but his voice was different now. He sighed and walked to John, then sat down when John offered him a chair. He let John hold his chin up and run his fingers over his cheekbone.  
  
“This might sting a bit,” John said, taking the antiseptic.  
  
Sherlock snorted but closed his eyes, when John cleaned the bruised skin. Whoever had hit Sherlock had probably had a ring on.  
  
“Sherlock? Who did this?”  
  
Sherlock didn’t look at John. He was breathing steadily in and out and John could feel the warmth of his breaths against his wrist. “Not important.”  
  
“Of course it is.”  
  
“If I tell you who it was,” Sherlock said slowly, “you will do something stupid.”  
  
John pulled his hands away. “Nothing’s broken. It’ll heal. But –“  
  
Sherlock opened his eyes. “I knew you would react unfavourably if I came here looking like this,” he said, but he didn’t sound disappointed. “I wouldn’t have, but I couldn’t skip the appointment.”  
  
“I’m glad you didn’t,” John said. “You aren’t supposed to skip appointments.” For a second he thought Sherlock was going to smile at him, but Sherlock looked away instead. “Sherlock? What happened?”  
  
“What do you mean, what happened?”  
  
“I mean…” He breathed in. “What did you… did you hit back?”  
  
“I can’t hit them back, John,” Sherlock said patiently, as if explaining something to a child. John fought the urge to grind his teeth together.  
  
“Yeah,” he said, “I realise it’s not ideal, but if they –“  
  
“I can’t hit them back,” Sherlock cut in, “because if I get violent, they will shut me down.”  
  
“…surely they can’t just –“  
  
“Anyone in the IT department could do it,” Sherlock said. “And they would be obliged, if someone reported I’m being violent towards… humans.”  
  
“So,” John said, clearing his throat, “ _so_ , your plan is just to be a prick.”  
  
“Yes,” Sherlock said. “Exactly. You aren’t completely stupid.”  
  
“That’s a stupid plan.”  
  
“It works surprisingly often,” Sherlock said. “And sometimes I just refuse to co-operate. Well, I always refuse to co-operate, but sometimes I do it quietly. It discourages most people when they realise that a sex robot doesn’t want to have sex with them.”  
  
“You aren’t a –“  
  
“…what?”  
  
John shook his head. “Nothing.”  
  
“Anyway,” Sherlock said slowly, “do you have something to do? Or are you going to just stand there, feeling sorry for me?”  
  
“I don’t feel sorry for you,” John said and then bit his lip. Oh, god, he was feeling sorry for Sherlock. He sat down and took a deep breath. “Shouldn’t I?”  
  
“When you first came to my cabin,” Sherlock said, “to shout at me for missing my appointment that you had kindly made for me, you were angry and frustrated because you didn’t know how to talk to me. The fact that I look like a human and still am not made you emotionally distraught.”  
  
“Everything about this makes me emotionally distraught,” John said and licked his lips. “Sherlock –“  
  
“You felt personally offended that anyone would want to have so-called sex with me,” Sherlock said, watching him. “You were wondering what was wrong with them.”  
  
“I’m still wondering what’s wrong with them. Sherlock, what are we going to do?”  
  
“ _We?_ ”  
  
John cleared his throat. “You and me. I’m in this now. You asked me in and I said yes.”  
  
Sherlock frowned at him.  
  
“I can’t just ignore this,” he said. He had a feeling that he was saying more than he had meant to, but he couldn’t stop himself. “I don’t believe anyone should be treated like you are. It’s terrible. People shouldn’t just… expect you to have sex with them.”  
  
“That’s literally the only thing I have been built for,” Sherlock said.  
  
“Bullshit,” John said, realising vaguely that he had raised his voice. “That’s bullshit. It’s not like you don’t… you _think_ , and you _feel_ , and… that should be enough for… for them to think that you’re a… a person.”  
  
Sherlock blinked at him.  
  
“Do you, don’t you? You… feel things, right? It’s just not an act?”  
  
“I don’t think I can prove that to you,” Sherlock said.  
  
“What? Just tell me if you –“  
  
“If I asked you,” Sherlock cut in, “if I asked you, John, whether you _think_ and _feel_ , and then you would say that yes, you think and you feel, and I would ask you to prove that, how would you do it? Especially if you were a creature who is highly competent in faking emotional intelligence and I was aware of that. How would you prove that you weren’t faking it?”  
  
John swallowed, opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again, and closed it again. Then he looked away from Sherlock. “When I touched you, you… you _felt_ it.”  
  
“Yes,” Sherlock said. “Nonhuman animals feel things, too, and still it took humans centuries to start taking their suffering seriously.”  
  
“This is not the same thing –“  
  
“Of course it’s not the same thing. I am a computer inside a synthetically manufactured human body. Many would argue that you have more common with nonhuman animals than with me. You are alive, they are alive. I am not.”  
  
“You look alive to me,” John said.  
  
“Yes,” Sherlock said, “but is it real? And am I really _thinking_ , or am I mimicking human thinking processes in the way that makes you think I can think?”  
  
John bit his lip. “I don’t like philosophy.”  
  
“I can never prove to you that I am a being that has ethical value. You have to prove that for yourself.”  
  
“What do you want of me?” John asked, his voice coming out thin. “What do you want me to do? Because I need to do something.”  
  
“You can’t do anything,” Sherlock said, his eyes on John. “ _I_ don’t know what to do yet and I’m considerably more capable intellectually than you are.”  
  
“And I don’t even know if you _think_ ,” John said.  
  
“And I don’t know if _you_ think,” Sherlock said.  
  
John opened his mouth.  
  
“I don’t know if you can feel,” Sherlock said. “I only see your reactions.”  
  
“…and my classified files.”  
  
Sherlock looked surprised. John smiled. He shouldn’t have felt so smug for surprising Sherlock, but he did. “True.”  
  
“I do think,” John said, “arguably, sometimes, and I most certainly feel things. Sometimes more than I’d like.”  
  
“I suppose I’m going to have to take your word on that,” Sherlock said and then blinked. “Do you need to go? Or are you going to sit here with me while your nurses think you’re fucking me?”  
  
John gasped. He didn’t mean to, but he did. “They don’t think that I –“  
  
“Of course they do,” Sherlock said. “Everyone else does. Anyway, if you aren’t going to leave this room and prove them wrong, can I ask you something?”  
  
“…alright.”  
  
“Tell me about your girlfriend. The last one.”  
  
Oh, bloody hell. “… _why?_ ”  
  
“I want to know what it’s like,” Sherlock said.  
  
John chewed on his lower lip. “Me and her, we weren’t… The way I ended things, that’s not a… not a very good example of a relationship.”  
  
“No,” Sherlock said, “no, I meant… I want to know what _you_ are like.”


	3. Chapter 3

He walked down the corridor, turned back, almost crashed into an engineer whose appendix he had removed some time ago, apologised, turned again, and walked all the way to Sherlock’s door. He shouldn’t be here. It was pointless, because he couldn’t help Sherlock, and rude, because he should have told Sherlock he was coming. Shit, he probably should have made an appointment, like everyone else, as if he was coming to Sherlock to…  
  
Oh, _fuck_ , he should go back to his cabin and take a cold shower or something. Or maybe hit himself in the face. Or at least drink some water.  
  
“John?”  
  
John took a very deep breath and turned to face Sherlock, who was standing at the doorway, watching John. He was wearing a white t-shirt and pyjama pants instead of his usual suit. His hair was a mess. He looked like he had been -  
  
“Were you sleeping?” John asked.  
  
“You are drunk,” Sherlock said and sniffed. “Synthetic whiskey.”  
  
“It tastes the same.”  
  
“I wasn’t criticising your choice of beverage. Are you going to just stand there?”  
  
John opened his mouth. Maybe it would be better, if he just stood here in the corridor.  
  
“Don’t be stupid,” Sherlock said. “You already came this far. And judging by the way you are breathing, you have been walking back and forth for at least five minutes.” And then he walked back into his cabin and left John standing in the corridor.  
  
John pulled his shoulders back and followed Sherlock. He had been here before. There was nothing special about this. Sherlock’s cabin was just like any other cabin, only it was even tinier than most of the cabins John had been in, and its walls where dark purple. The shade reminded John of a strip bar he had visited when he had been… almost twenty years younger, probably. Oh, god, he was old. He was old and in outer space and locked into a cabin with a robot who was… the best and wisest robot he had ever met, and he didn’t… and he couldn’t…  
  
“Why are you drunk?” Sherlock asked, sounding both curious and worried. Robots didn’t sound curious _or_ worried.  
  
John sat down in Sherlock’s bed, because it was the only place where he could sit. The sheets were warm. “You were in bed.”  
  
“Yes,” Sherlock said. “It’s past midnight. Why are you drunk, John?”  
  
“Because I drank synthetic whiskey,” John said and chuckled. Oh, god, he was funny. He was funny and sad and didn’t even know why. Sherlock was _just a robot._ He wasn’t _real._ “Sherlock?”  
  
Sherlock folded his hands, still standing, still looming over John like a very tall and dark and handsome man. “Yes?”  
  
“I have to ask you something,” John said. “Something. I have a question.”  
  
“…yes?”  
  
“Do you _sleep?_ ”  
  
“Yes,” Sherlock said, looking disappointed. He still looked pretty. Even when he was disappointed. He was very pretty all the time. That was probably the whole point of him, really, so John shouldn’t have been surprised. “Was that your question?”  
  
“Yeah,” John said, “no, no, I think it was. I don’t know. How can you sleep if you’re a robot?”  
  
“My body requires it for maintenance,” Sherlock said. “I sleep three or four hours every night. I was trying to fall asleep when -”  
  
“When I stopped you. Sorry.”  
  
“When I heard you pacing back and forth just outside my door.”  
  
John licked his lips. They were a bit dry. He needed water. Or whiskey. But he also needed to talk to Sherlock. “You didn’t know it was me, though. You don’t have an X-ray machine, have you?”  
  
“What?”  
  
“In your eyes. You could have an X-ray machine in your eyes.”  
  
“John,” Sherlock said very slowly and sat down next to John on the mattress. That was good. That meant he was so close to John that John could smell his… cologne, probably. Or shampoo. Or something. “I don’t have an X-ray machine in my eyes,” Sherlock said.  
  
“…are you sure?”  
  
“ _Yes._ ” Sherlock breathed out. It looked real. It looked like he was really breathing, and maybe he was, because he had a human body. Human bodies breathed. John knew that. He was a doctor. “I recognised the sound of your steps,” Sherlock said.  
  
“What?”  
  
“You heard me. You’re drunk and an idiot, but your hearing is adequate.”  
  
“Not an idiot,” John said. He was not an idiot. He wasn’t as clever as some people, obviously, but he wasn’t _stupid._ He was a doctor, for example. A doctor on a mission in outer space. Stupid people didn’t do that. Stupid people…  
  
Oh, god, he was drunk.  
  
“I’m drunk,” he told Sherlock. “Sorry. I don’t know how this happened.”  
  
“I’m sure it was the whiskey.”  
  
John realised he was laughing. “You’re funny. How can you be funny? You’re a robot. You aren’t supposed to be funny. Or clever. Or _feel_ things. I can’t fix this. I’m a doctor. I don’t like philosophy.”  
  
“I’m going to get you a glass of water,” Sherlock said and stood up.  
  
John blinked, staring at his own hands. He couldn’t remember the last time he had had synthetic whiskey or anything else besides a few pints of beer. Maybe he should have had less this time. But he had opened the bottle, sitting on his own bed in his own cabin alone in outer space, and the more he had drunk, the more he had thought about Sherlock, and it had been a fucking nightmare.  
  
His right hand began twitching. He clenched and unclenched his fist, and it helped a little.  
  
“Here,” Sherlock said, placing a glass of water in John’s hand.  
  
“Sorry,” John said and emptied the glass. It helped. Maybe. But he needed to take a piss. “Can I use your toilet?”  
  
“Sure,” Sherlock said and sat down on the mattress as John climbed onto his feet and walked to the toilet. He closed the door and locked it even though he was pretty sure Sherlock wouldn’t come in anyway. The toilet was so small John hit his elbow on the wall twice, and when he was ready, he tried to look himself in the eyes in the mirror and ended up bumping his forehead on it. Thank god he didn’t break it, though. That would have been embarrassing.  
  
He washed his hands and unlocked the door. Sherlock was still sitting on the mattress, his legs crossed, his hands folded in his lap, looking perfectly sober. And perfect. And John wasn’t even gay.  
  
“I’m not gay,” he told Sherlock.  
  
“Okay,” Sherlock said, frowning at him. “I think maybe you should go back to your cabin and get some sleep.”  
  
“I don’t have a shift tomorrow. I don’t have to wake up early.”  
  
“I know,” Sherlock said. “I wasn’t exactly worried about that.”  
  
John took a deep breath. So, Sherlock was worried about something. That made sense. If John had been Sherlock, he would have been worried about so many things, only it was impossible to think of himself in Sherlock’s shoes, absolutely impossible, and also Sherlock didn’t have his shoes on. He didn’t even have socks. He just had feet, like regular people. Toes. Five toes. Each foot. Ten in total.  
  
“…John?”  
  
“You’re right,” John said, straightening his back. “I’m drunk. I apologise. Sorry. I should go to sleep.”  
  
Sherlock stared at him for a moment without saying anything. Or maybe it was many moments. John wasn’t good at math. He was a doctor. He stared back at Sherlock, trying not to look drunk.  
  
“You could sleep here,” Sherlock said finally.  
  
John cleared his throat. “What? Where?”  
  
“Here,” Sherlock said. His voice was quiet and low and hoarse and very nice. “If you want to. The bed’s big enough. You’ll be sober in the morning.”  
  
“I’ll have a hangover in the morning,” John said, trying to think. He was pretty sure Sherlock had said John could sleep in his bed. And the bed was big. And it looked nice. But it was also where Sherlock… “I won’t touch you.”  
  
“I know,” Sherlock said. “I’m not worried.”  
  
“You look worried.”  
  
Sherlock breathed in and out. John stared at his mouth.  
  
“You look worried,” John said again. “But I swear to you, I’m not going to do anything that… anything that you don’t want me to do.”  
  
“I _know_ ,” Sherlock said and cleared his throat. He had a nice throat. But John shouldn’t think about that now. They were talking. This was important.  
  
“How do you know?” John asked. “How do you know that I won’t…” Everyone else apparently did. Or not _everyone_ , he knew that, but… It was too much, anyway. Even one was too much.  
  
“I have to trust someone,” Sherlock said, his eyes moving back and forth on John’s face, as if he was trying to see something in there. John wished he hadn’t been so drunk. He didn’t look good when he was drunk. He had seen some awful pictures. “And also, I read all your classified files,” Sherlock said. “I’m making an informed guess here.”  
  
“You trust me,” John said. Oh, god, that was nice, and made his chest feel too small. He walked to the bed and sat down next to Sherlock. “Hey, Sherlock –“  
  
“John?”  
  
“I’m sorry about what… the first appointment, when you came to the sickbay and I…”  
  
“Completely necessary,” Sherlock said, looking away from him.  
  
“No, it wasn’t,” he said, “you already knew that there was nothing wrong with your… body, and I just… I can’t believe I…”  
  
“It was necessary,” Sherlock said. “I couldn’t have asked you to help me if I hadn’t let you do that to me first. And also, then Mike Stamford would have done it, and that would have been terrible. He’s afraid of me, because I told him a few things about his relationships. He would have been terribly nervous the whole time and that would have been highly irritating. I preferred that it was you.”  
  
“But,” John said and cleared his throat, “ _but –_ “  
  
“And it has bought me some time,” Sherlock said, sighed, and took his t-shirt off. John almost fell from the bed. “Stop that. I’m just going to get back to bed. I don’t sleep with a t-shirt on.”  
  
“Oh,” John said, raising his hands to rub his temples. “ _Oh._ I didn’t –“  
  
“Of course not,” Sherlock said and took off his pyjama pants as well. He lay down on the mattress with nothing on except boxers. John stared. He couldn’t help it, because he was drunk. “You can lie down, too. If you want to.”  
  
“Next to you.”  
  
“That’s the general idea.”  
  
John breathed in, took away his shoes, then his trousers, then his shirt, then his t-shirt, and then his socks. Then he thought that maybe this was too much, put his socks back on and settled on the bed next to Sherlock. “This is weird,” he said.  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“I need to tell you something.”  
  
Sherlock closed his eyes. He was lying on his back. His hair looked very soft. “Okay.”  
  
“I haven’t slept in the same bed with anyone since… since the break-up. Before this mission.”  
  
“I have never slept in the same bed with anyone,” Sherlock said, his eyes still closed. “Anything else?”  
  
John opened his mouth and then closed it again.  
  
“Good,” Sherlock said. “Try to sleep.”  
  
  
**  
  
  
“Sherlock? Are you asleep?”  
  
“No,” Sherlock said. He was on his side, facing away from John.  
  
John bit his lip. He didn’t know what time it was, he didn’t know if he was drunk anymore, and he absolutely didn’t know what to do. It couldn’t be morning already, but maybe it would be for the best anyway if he got out of the bed and went back to his own cabin. Maybe that was what Sherlock expected him to do, just didn’t know how to say it. Maybe Sherlock was trying to be nice at him, and oh, god, the thought was hurting his heart surprisingly badly.   
  
But then again, Sherlock had told him that he could stay for a night, and he didn’t particularly want to put his clothes on and walk through the corridors. He was warm and cosy here, despite the awkwardness.  
  
“Can I ask you something?”  
  
“You have done little else so far,” Sherlock said.  
  
John bit his lip.  
  
Sherlock sighed. “Just ask me.”  
  
“Alright.”  
  
“…John?”  
  
“Sorry. I just… When I did the… examination for you, you seemed so… you responded so… It seemed to me that you felt… I don’t know why you…”  
  
“I hope you realise you didn’t finish even one of those sentences,” Sherlock said.  
  
John swallowed.  
  
“Just say it, John.”  
  
 _Oh, god._ “Why don’t you like sex if it feels so good?”  
  
Sherlock was quiet for a long while, then rolled onto his back. The light was out but John was so close he could see Sherlock’s eyelids flickering, eyelashes twitching. The bruise on Sherlock’s cheek wasn’t there anymore. At least that was good. It had healed well, then.  
  
“It’s not sex,” Sherlock said. “Don’t make me spell it out for you.”  
  
“No, of course not,” John said quickly. “Sorry. But…”  
  
“It’s two different things,” Sherlock said, “wanting someone to do something to you, and… someone doing something to you that your body thinks feels good.”  
  
John breathed out. “They could be the same thing.”  
  
“Not really.” Sherlock glanced at him. “Not when you don’t have control. If someone forced you to eat a piece of the most delicious strawberry cake, would you like it?”  
  
“…it doesn’t even begin to compare, though.”  
  
“No,” Sherlock said and sighed, “no, I suppose it doesn’t.”  
  
John shifted closer to him. “Sherlock?”  
  
“Yes?”  
  
“How did you know I love strawberry cake?”  
  
“As I told you, I’ve read all your files. Multiple times.”  
  
“Multiple times?”  
  
“I was bored.”  
  
“I’m not very interesting.”  
  
“Don’t be an idiot,” Sherlock said and smiled at him, but briefly. “Any more questions about my life?”  
  
He bit his lip. Oh, god, he couldn’t ask this, but he was going to – “Do you call it a _life_?”  
  
Sherlock looked surprised for a second, then blinked and it was gone. “What would I call it instead? Existence?”  
  
“You think you exist?” John said as quietly as he could, but still it sounded wrong.  
  
“You have had your fingers inside me,” Sherlock said, his voice perfectly steady. “What do you think?”  
  
John tried not to smile. It wasn’t a joke, and also, it was terrifying. And now he was thinking about his fingers inside Sherlock, which was just… not good. “You exist,” he said.  
  
“Thank you,” Sherlock said.  
  
  
**  
  
  
John woke up with his chest pressed against Sherlock’s back and his left arm draped around Sherlock’s waist. He blinked and realised he had Sherlock’s hair in his mouth, and he wouldn’t have been surprised if he had had his mouth on the back of Sherlock’s neck just a moment ago. Oh, god, he just fucking hoped he hadn’t been drooling. At least Sherlock seemed to be still asleep, judging by the steady rhythm of his breathing. Surely Sherlock wouldn’t have been so calm if he had been conscious enough to realise John was practically cuddling him -  
  
“John?”  
  
John jerked back and almost fell off the bed. “Sorry. I didn’t… I wasn’t…”  
  
“Just come back here,” Sherlock said.  
  
“…what?”  
  
“Come back here,” Sherlock said, still facing away from John, so that John couldn’t even see his face. But he didn’t sound angry, or irritated, or offended. And still…  
  
John cleared his throat. “Maybe I shouldn’t.”  
  
“I’m aware that your penis is erect,” Sherlock said.  
  
John opened his mouth.  
  
“Sorry,” Sherlock said, “I mean, your cock is hard.”  
  
John took a very deep breath. “…and you still want me to… lie next to you?”  
  
“Yes. Please, proceed.”  
  
John settled down on the mattress slowly, making sure that he didn’t brush his dick against any part of Sherlock’s body at the process. “It’s just morning wood,” he said, when he was lying so close to Sherlock that he could imagine feeling Sherlock’s warmth through the empty space between them. “I don’t…”  
  
“Really?”  
  
“Not that I don’t want to,” John said, “but I… _God,_ Sherlock, I shouldn’t be saying these things to you.” And he didn’t even know what he was saying. He wasn’t _gay_ , and even if he sometimes found men attractive and maybe had had a few experiences with men when he had been younger, he wasn’t attracted to _Sherlock_ , who wasn’t strictly speaking a man, and certainly not a human. He _wasn’t_ , only of course he was _attracted_ to Sherlock, _everyone_ was attracted to Sherlock, that was the whole point of why someone had made Sherlock. And Sherlock was perfect. Sherlock was absolutely perfect, and of course John was attracted to him, but it didn’t mean anything. It wasn’t real.  
  
“John,” Sherlock asked. His voice was impossibly low and husky and it didn’t help John with his erection. “If I asked you to, would you… do something for me?”  
  
“Of course,” John said and then placed his left palm lightly on Sherlock’s side. “What?”  
  
“The same thing,” Sherlock said. “The same thing than what you did to me in the operating room.”  
  
“… _what?_ Sherlock –“  
  
“Just, I don’t want to be on my back. I want to… I want to lie like this.”  
  
John realised vaguely that he had stopped breathing at some point. “But… why would you –“  
  
“Because it feels very good.”  
  
 _Oh, bloody fucking…_ “I don’t have lube.”  
  
“I have,” Sherlock said. “All sorts. You can pick. They’re under the bed.”  
  
“Under the –“  
  
“I don’t want to look at that stuff.”  
  
John cleared his throat. “Sherlock, are you –“  
  
“Unless you don’t want to,” Sherlock said and glanced at him over his shoulder. “Which is perfectly understandable.”  
  
John had a feeling that he had strings attached to him and Sherlock was pulling at them. “Of course I want to.”  
  
“Right,” Sherlock said, not looking the least surprised. “Then do it.”  
  
“You’re asking me to –“  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“…and you realise that… that you can tell me to stop, anytime, and I will?”  
  
Sherlock froze for a second. John held his breath, his hand still resting on Sherlock’s side. He drew soft circles on Sherlock’s skin with his thumb.  
  
“Yes,” Sherlock said finally. “I suppose so.”  
  
“You _can._ I mean it.”  
  
Sherlock didn’t answer.  
  
“Sherlock? Can I… kiss you?”  
  
“Not on my mouth,” Sherlock said so quietly John could barely hear.  
  
“Okay. Okay, I’ll just…” And he reached under the bed and picked up the first tube of lubricant he found. Apparently it tasted of strawberry, but well, he didn’t think he was going to be tasting it. He spent a while wondering what the hell was wrong with him and why he was doing this, and then another warming the lube in his hand. Finally he pushed his fingers under the waistband of Sherlock’s boxers and stopped there. “Are you sure?”  
  
“Yes,” Sherlock said.  
  
John tugged the boxers down on Sherlock’s thighs and then let go. Sherlock wriggled on the mattress and threw the boxers onto the floor. John blinked. Oh, _shit_ , he couldn’t believe he was doing this, but he was, and his own dick was hard and pressing against the seam in his boxers, and he definitely wasn’t going to think about that now.  
  
“John –“  
  
He spread Sherlock’s cheeks and pressed his finger lightly against the entrance. “Alright?” Sherlock hissed at him. It sounded like an affirmative hiss but then again, he wanted to be certain. “Sherlock?”  
  
“ _Yes_ ,” Sherlock said and then let out a quiet sigh when John pushed his fingertip in.  
  
 _Oh, shit. Oh, shit. Oh, shit._ He really was… he had his finger inside Sherlock, and this wasn’t him being a doctor, certainly not, and he was pretty sure Sherlock realised that too, this was… this was probably sex. It couldn’t be anything else. He pushed his finger a little deeper and then brushed it over Sherlock’s prostate as lightly as he could. Sherlock jumped and started panting.   
  
“John?”  
  
John cleared his throat. “Yeah?”  
  
“Can you… talk?”  
  
Could he? He wasn’t sure. “Yeah. Of course I can talk. I can… Anything specific?”  
  
“No,” Sherlock said, “just… so that I know it’s you.”  
  
“It’s me,” John said, moving his finger slowly in and out, “it’s just me. I’m just going to… I just want you to feel good. Just breathe and let me… let me touch you, Sherlock, let me touch you and… breathe.”  
  
“ _John_ ,” Sherlock said. He didn’t sound like he was breathing.  
  
“Yeah,” John said, rubbing Sherlock’s side with his left palm while he pushed another finger inside. “Yeah, I know. But you’re good. You’re perfect. I know you know this already, but I don’t really know what I’m saying here, so I’m just going to… take a deep breath for me, Sherlock, and…” He brushed his thumb against Sherlock’s perineum, rubbed gently, then crooked his fingers inside Sherlock. “Yeah. Just like that. You’re alright. I’ve got you.”  
  
Sherlock raised his arm and buried his face in the crook of his elbow.  
  
“Yeah,” John said, stroking his back. He pulled his fingers out and pushed them back in and raised his free hand until he was touching the back of Sherlock’s neck. He kept it there for a moment, then pushed his fingers through Sherlock’s hair and pressed his fingertips against Sherlock’s scalp. “Is this alright?”  
  
“Yes,” Sherlock said.  
  
“Good,” John said. A tiny head massage, then. He could do that. He would just have to be careful not to poke at Sherlock’s prostate while he was otherwise occupied. “I like your hair,” he said. “It’s nice. It’s very nice. And your eyes. And your… I really like you, Sherlock, I know it’s a stupid thing to say but I do, I can’t help it, you’re so… you’re so clever, I never know what you’re thinking, and _you_ seem to know what I’m thinking, all the time, which is a bit distracting really, but nice. Nice in a very weird way. I just think that if we had met each other somewhere else, in some other situation, we might have been…” He pushed his fingers deeper. “…friends.”  
  
Sherlock was shaking.  
  
“Not that we aren’t,” John said, “I suppose we are, I don’t know what else this would be, because this surely isn’t a doctor-patient-relationship anymore. And I can’t stand the idea that people hurt you. I just can’t. It’s… it’s fucking awful, and I want to stop it, and I have absolutely no idea how to, it’s just… it’s beyond me, and I fucking _hate_ it.”  
  
“John –“  
  
“What?”  
  
“Maybe,” Sherlock said, breathing hard, “maybe a bit less concentration on my… my unfortunate circumstances and more…”  
  
“Oh,” John said and bit his lip. “Oh, sorry. Of course. I’m –“  
  
“Stop apologising,” Sherlock said. “Tell me about London.”  
  
“…London?”  
  
“On Earth. You lived there. Before this.”  
  
“Yeah,” John said, leaned down and kissed the back of Sherlock’s neck as softly as he could. Apparently he had stopped moving his fingers inside Sherlock, but then again, maybe it was a good idea to give Sherlock a break. “Yeah, I remember London. What do you want to know?”  
  
“Everything,” Sherlock said.  
  
John kissed his shoulder and wriggled with his fingers. Just a little bit. Sherlock sighed. “I’ve lived there all my life. Except for when I’ve been in outer space, of course.”  
  
“Of course,” Sherlock said, and then his breathing faltered. John circled his arm around Sherlock and wrapped his fingers around Sherlock’s dick.  
  
“Can I do this?”  
  
“Yes. _London._ ”  
  
“Tell me when you want to come, Sherlock.”  
  
“Not yet,” Sherlock said, and John started talking about London. He liked London, but also he had never lived anywhere else. There was always something happening in London, and it was full of people, most of whom were probably almost as lonely and lost in their lives as John was. He could wake up in the morning, walk to the window and see the street full of people walking nowhere in rushed steps, and he liked to imagine they were as miserable as he was, in some days, or as tired as he was, in others. And when he had a good day, a happy day, and he thought that maybe, just maybe life could be like this for some time, then there was someone to smile at, someone who would look back at him and wonder if he was mad. He liked it. He liked London. He liked the streets and the parks and the buildings and the tube and the constant noise.  
  
“You would like it,” he told Sherlock. “I’m sure you would. Maybe we should go there. Maybe I should take you. One day.”  
  
“John,” Sherlock said, “I want to… tell me to come.”  
  
John shifted closer to Sherlock. His wrist was aching and his knee was aching and when he slipped his fingers back inside Sherlock, he poked at Sherlock’s prostate too hard and Sherlock let out a broken sound. “Sorry,” John said, kissed Sherlock’s back and sped up his hand which was stroking Sherlock’s cock. “Come on, darling, Sherlock, come now. _Now._ For me.”  
  
Sherlock came in his hand. He held Sherlock through it, and then he pulled away his hands carefully. _Fuck,_ he was panting himself, and sweating, and a fucking mess, and he needed to adjust his dick, and he really wanted to kiss Sherlock.  
  
“Thank you,” Sherlock said, after they had both been breathing hard in the silence for a while.  
  
“You’re welcome,” John said. Apparently he was now smiling like an idiot. “That was your first time, Sherlock.”  
  
Sherlock turned to him. “Virginity is a cultural concept,” Sherlock said, “and a very outdated and distasteful one.”  
  
“I like you so much,” he said, wiping his hands in the sheets. He wasn’t going to touch Sherlock’s face with the hand that had been inside Sherlock’s arse, so it definitely had to be the hand that had been holding Sherlock’s cock. He brushed his fingers lightly against Sherlock’s cheek. “You don’t have a fucking clue how much I like you.”  
  
“That might be a problem,” Sherlock said.  
  
John laughed. “Yeah. Yeah, you’re right, it might be a problem.”  
  
“I don’t find your personality displeasing.”  
  
“Thank god,” John said, stroking Sherlock’s chin. Sherlock’s eyes were so absolutely beautiful, he could have stared at them the whole day. If only he hadn’t had a fucking hard-on. “Hey, can I use your toilet?”  
  
Sherlock blinked. “Why? Do you need to urinate?”  
  
“No,” John said and bit his lip, “well, yeah, soon enough, but I thought I might… I kind of wished I could toss off.”  
  
Sherlock swallowed. “You aren’t going to ask –“  
  
“No,” John said, pushing strands of hair from Sherlock’s face. The skin there was warm and damp. “No, I’m absolutely not going to ask anything of you. I’m not going to do that. But I’m so… it’d only take, like, half a minute, so if I could just go to your toilet and –“  
  
“Can I watch?”  
  
“…what? Me?”  
  
“Yes,” Sherlock said, staring at him as if he was an idiot.  
  
He licked his lips. “You want to watch me while I… toss off?”  
  
“Masturbate, yes,” Sherlock said. “Please.”  
  
John opened his mouth and closed it again. He was pretty sure his face was bright pink now. “Sure. If you want to.”  
  
“I want to,” Sherlock said. “Go to the toilet, close the toilet seat and sit down. But don’t close the door.”  
  
“Alright,” John said. He did what Sherlock had asked, and then when Sherlock stood next to the bed, watching him, he pushed his boxers down to the floor and took his dick in his hand. Sherlock seemed to have some troubles trying to decide which point of John he wanted to stare at. And it was weird, and hot, and John kind of wanted to close his eyes but couldn’t, so he just looked at Sherlock all the way through it, until he came in his own hand and bit his lip hard but still couldn’t catch the moan.  
  
“Interesting,” Sherlock said. “Next time, I think I want to touch it.”


	4. Chapter 4

“John?”  
  
John almost dropped the synthetic chocolate pudding from his hand. “Molly?”  
  
“Hi,” Molly said, sitting next to him at the canteen table. “Sorry to startle you, I just… do you have a minute?”  
  
John thought about saying no. But he was sitting in the canteen in a t-shirt and jeans, holding a half-empty bowl of chocolate pudding. It might have been a bit difficult to make Molly believe he was actually very busy. “Yeah, sure. What is it?”  
  
“I know you’ve been seeing Sherlock.”  
  
John opened his mouth but only managed to start coughing.  
  
“I didn’t mean it like that,” Molly said, her eyes wide open now. “I meant that you’ve… Mike asked you to examine him, and you did, and now you’ve been… treating him.”  
  
“Oh,” John said and took a sip of water. “ _Oh_. Yeah. Yeah, I’ve been… he’s had some… medical problems.”  
  
“Medical problems,” Molly repeated slowly, “yeah, I… I heard about that.” She looked around as if trying to check if anyone was listening to them. It was midday in the starship and the canteen was full of people, all chattering. “Mr. Smith from the Recreational Department asked me about him this morning. So, I just thought maybe I should warn you.”  
  
John took a deep breath. “…warn me?”  
  
“I actually talked to him last night,” Molly said in a quiet voice, “and he said… well, he didn’t say much, but I think he likes you, which is very weird, because he never likes anyone. But, well, just so that you know… I think that it’s a good thing what you’re doing.”  
  
John cleared his throat and then realised he didn’t have a fucking clue what to say. The last time he had seen Sherlock was two days ago, and then he had… Well, he supposed it _had_ been a good thing what he had done to Sherlock then, but surely Sherlock hadn’t told Molly about _that._  
  
“I just thought maybe you’d like to think what you’re going to say to Mr. Smith,” Molly said, “if he asks you. He’s… very frustrated that Sherlock isn’t… Well, he said _functioning._ ”  
  
“Functioning –“  
  
“Yeah.” Molly sighed and then stood up. “Thank you, John.”  
  
“You’re welcome,” John said, wondering what the hell Molly was thanking him for.  
  
He was still wondering about it two hours later, when he knocked on the door of Sherlock’s cabin. He had been to gym, taken a shower and walked circles on Deck 2, until finally he had given up. Maybe it was stupid of him to go to Sherlock like this, in the middle of the day, but it had been two days since he had slept in Sherlock’s bed through the night and he hadn’t heard from Sherlock or seen Sherlock since. He wasn’t desperate or anything, he just wanted to see Sherlock. And it _had_ been two days.  
  
He waited behind the door for a few more seconds and then, when nothing happened, he knocked again.  
  
“What?” someone asked. It was a male voice, but it certainly wasn’t Sherlock.  
  
_Oh, shit._  
  
John breathed in and out and clenched his fists. “Open the door.”  
  
“I’ve still got half an hour,” the voice said, coming muffled through the door.  
  
“I’m a doctor,” John said, “and he’s… Sherlock’s got an appointment. I can’t wait for half an hour.” His heart was beating too fast and he felt cold in a way that was probably a bit metaphorical. He was ready to knock on the door again, this time with all the authority he could muster, or maybe kick the damn door, but it slid open first.  
  
“There’s something wrong with you,” a man said to Sherlock. He sounded angry. Sherlock was standing in the middle of the tiny cabin, still as a statue. He wasn’t wearing a shirt and his belt was hanging loose. “There’s something wrong with it,” the man said, turning to John. John didn’t remember his face. “It talked to me about my _grandmother._ ”  
  
“I’m sorry to hear that,” John said, hoping that he sounded calm and not like he was feeling. “And yes, he has medical problems, and I’m taking care of that. Now, if you could kindly excuse us –“  
  
“I’m going to report this,” the man said to Sherlock.  
  
Sherlock didn’t react in any way.  
  
“Of course,” John said to the man. “We have gotten many reports about his behaviour lately. The problem is well acknowledged. We’re working on it.”  
  
“Good,” the man said, “good, because this is…” And then he walked out of the cabin and down the corridor without looking back.  
  
The second that the door was closed, Sherlock started fastening his belt. “Working on it?” he asked. His voice was strained, and John was pretty sure his hands were shaking. “Really?”  
  
“I was just trying to keep him from reporting you,” John said. “Hey –“  
  
“Where’s my shirt?” Sherlock asked, turning around. The shirt was on the bed. Sherlock picked it up, frowned at it and then started putting it on.  
  
“Sorry,” John said.  
  
“What for? You haven’t done anything.”  
  
“No, I just…” Goddamn. “Sorry.”  
  
“You are sorry because you happened to walk in when someone was trying to conduct sexual activities on my person and that made you uncomfortable. Completely unnecessary. Useless sentiment. I’m perfectly capable of handling it.”  
  
“You shouldn’t have to be,” John said. “No one should have to capable of handling that kind of stuff. Are you… are you alright?”  
  
That made Sherlock look him in the eyes for some reason. He looked back, and Sherlock glared at him for a few seconds and then sighed. “Yes. Yes, I’m alright.”  
  
“Good,” John said and nodded at the bed. “Can I sit?”  
  
“…yes.”  
  
“Thank you.” He sat down on the edge of mattress and folded his hands in his lap. “I haven’t seen you in a few days.”  
  
“You haven’t summoned me.”  
  
“Summoned you? Is that how this works?”  
  
Sherlock rolled his eyes. “Of course that is how this works. You make an appointment and I come.”  
  
“No, yeah, I know, but… I thought we were…” _Oh, god._ “…friends.”  
  
“Friends?” Sherlock repeated, staring at him.  
  
“I slept in your bed,” he said. His face felt warm and the fingers in his right hand were twitching. _Shit._  
  
“True,” Sherlock said slowly.  
  
“I thought I’d see you sooner,” John said, feeling utterly stupid. “I thought… I don’t know what I thought, but you said… you said, _next time._ ”  
  
“Yes,” Sherlock said, frowning. “Is this… I believe it is customary that when two people spend a night together, one of them contacts the other after an appropriate amount of time has passed to as a sign of their continuing interest.” And then he closed his mouth and kept on staring at John as if he expected John to know what to say, the bastard.  
  
“Well,” John said, “it’s been a while since I’ve been dating, but… that sounds about right, yeah.”  
  
Sherlock blinked at him. “Are we dating?”  
  
“No,” he said quickly and then stopped, “well, I don’t know. Certainly the circumstances are… not good. For dating.”  
  
“Why didn’t you contact me? To show me your continuing interest? Or did you not want to seem interested?”  
  
John bit his lip. “I don’t know. I don’t really know, Sherlock.”  
  
“You’re much more familiar with the dating protocol than I am, John.”  
  
“Well, I’m sure you’ve read about it,” John said. He was pretty sure that Sherlock almost smiled at him. “Just so that you know,” John said, “you can come to me. If you want to. Without an… appointment.”  
  
“I can come to your cabin?”  
  
“Do you know where it is?”  
  
Sherlock snorted.  
  
“You can come there,” John said, clearing his throat. “Anytime. Or send me a text with the communicator and I’ll come to you.”  
  
Sherlock nodded, looking away from him. “So, you are…”  
  
“I’m in this now, Sherlock,” he said. He was going to be in so much trouble. It was surprisingly difficult to remember that he wasn’t just a lonely middle-aged doctor in space talking to a man who he hoped was his future boyfriend.  
  
He bit his lip. And he wasn’t even fucking _gay_ , only he supposed that didn’t mean much.  
  
“So, the reason why I came here,” he said, straightening his back. “Molly Hooper came to talk to me in the canteen. She said… she said you had talked with her last night.”  
  
Sherlock raised his eyebrows. “Are you jealous?”  
  
“No,” John said immediately, “no, I… should I be?”  
  
“Absolutely not,” Sherlock said. Now he was definitely smiling. “Well, she thinks that I am very, excuse me my language, _hot._ But she’s also the one responsible for the updates in my operating system.”  
  
John swallowed. “Did she…”  
  
“What?”  
  
“Did she create you?”  
  
“No,” Sherlock said. “Of course not. She’s just… maintenance.”  
  
“Okay. So, who…”  
  
Sherlock stared at him with narrowed eyes.  
  
“Was it military?” he asked. “Did they… did they try to make a… some kind of a spy robot or something? Because that would make sense. You’re so intelligent and witty and… Surely they didn’t develop you for…”  
  
“Sex,” Sherlock said. “Yes, they did.”  
  
“But…”  
  
“There’s always demand,” Sherlock said, his voice perfectly calm, which only made John feel less calm. “There’s always people who are lonely, and people who can’t find someone to have sex with them, and people who can’t get someone they like to have sex with them. People who want more sex, or sex with a different person, or different sex. It’s all very understandable, really. Human nature.”  
  
John breathed in and out. “But this isn’t the solution.”  
  
“Isn’t it?” Sherlock asked, watching him. “If they could develop a machine that would look like a human and talk like a human and feel like a human, a machine that could give all those lonely people what they want, what they need, wouldn’t that be great?”  
  
“You read that somewhere.”  
  
“Yes. Isn’t it great, a possibility to ease the loneliness?”  
  
“Yeah,” John said, “yeah, it is great, but this isn’t… you aren’t… _a machine._ ”  
  
“Of course I am,” Sherlock said. “A machine made of flesh.”  
  
“But you don’t just… you don’t just talk like a human, you… you _think._ ”  
  
“I think that I think.”  
  
“…what?”  
  
“As you do, by the way,” Sherlock said, sighed and sat down on the bed next to John. The bed dipped. John held his hands in his lap and didn’t touch Sherlock. “Someone might argue that it’s just reflexes,” Sherlock said, sounding more tired now. “That what you think is your free will is just you responding to external stimulus. Determinism. But, well, I’m sure the next model will have less ability for creative cognitive processes.”  
  
“The next model?”  
  
“Of me. The thing is, they wanted me to be able to gather information and make deductions based on it. That helps me to communicate with people and to figure out what they want of me.” Sherlock paused. “But then I found myself thinking that I don’t _want_ it.”  
  
John opened his mouth and closed it again.  
  
“Don’t be jealous of Molly,” Sherlock said and glanced at him. “Well, I don’t mind if you are. It’s unexpectedly entertaining. But you have no reason to be.”  
  
“Good,” he said. “That’s… good.”  
  
“She pities me,” Sherlock said and breathed out. “She’s the one who updates my operating system and she has had opportunities to… limit my capability of… defending myself verbally. She hasn’t done that. She pities me, like you do now. I hate it, but also… I need it.”  
  
“I don’t pity you.”  
  
“Of course you do. I can see it on your face.”  
  
John looked away.  
  
“It’s alright,” Sherlock said. “So, you didn’t tell me yet what Molly said to you.”  
  
“Oh. Right. She…” _Shit._ “She told me Mr. Smith from the Recreational Department had asked her about you. She wanted to warn me to get my story straight before he comes to me.”  
  
“Mr. Smith,” Sherlock said, his voice suddenly cold. “Yes, I suppose he’s impatient.”  
  
“I’ve been thinking what I should say to him. I thought maybe… maybe if I tell him that… that there has been too much use.”  
  
“Too much use –“  
  
“Yeah,” John said, rubbing his face. “I could tell him that you need some time off or else… or else you won’t recover.”  
  
“John,” Sherlock said slowly, “that won’t work.”  
  
“I’ll have to tell him something.”  
  
“It has to be something he doesn’t understand but which sounds convincing. Medical jargon. You can’t just tell him that too many people have fucked me in the arse and now I need rest.”  
  
John flinched. “Don’t say it like that.”  
  
“But you look so shocked,” Sherlock said, watching him. “It’s nice. Your face looks funny.”  
  
“My face looks _funny?_ ”  
  
“Aren’t you happy that you look funny?”  
  
“Happy that I look _funny?_ No. _No,_ Sherlock, no, I… I don’t want to look _funny._ ”  
  
“What, then?” Sherlock asked. “Would you like me to say that your face is very expressive? That you make an uncountable amount of tiny expressions without even realising it, and you’re under an assumption that you’re capable of hiding your emotions when in fact they are written all over your face? Would you prefer that?”  
  
John swallowed. “Not really.”  
  
“I like it, though,” Sherlock said. “I like to watch it. Your face. With all your emotions. It makes me wonder what it’s like, you know, to have so many emotions.”  
  
“You have emotions.”  
  
“But I’ll never know if they feel the same to me than they do to you,” Sherlock said. “Your shift starts in fifteen minutes.”  
  
John glanced at the clock. _Shit._  
  
“I’ll think about what you can say to Mr. Smith,” Sherlock said, “and I’ll text you. Today.”  
  
“Okay,” John said and stood up. He really had to go. But… “Sherlock, can I…”  
  
“Yes?” Sherlock asked, looking at him. He was pretty damn sure that Sherlock knew what he was going to ask, but it didn’t make asking it any easier.  
  
“Can I sleep here? Tonight?”  
  
“Yes,” Sherlock said. “Are you expecting sex?”  
  
“Only if you want to,” John said. His throat felt thick. “Whatever you want to.”  
  
“That’s acceptable,” Sherlock said, looking perfectly serious.  
  
Oh, god, John liked him too much.  
  
  
**  
  
  
When Mr. Smith came to the sickbay, John asked the man into his office that really was a desk in the corner. Mr. Smith didn’t seem to mind. He wanted to know about 221B’s progress, and John explained the situation to him. Thank god Mike wasn’t around to hear him talking this bullshit. But Mr. Smith listened to him, nodded whenever he paused for a second, and frowned unhappily but didn’t point out that what John was saying didn’t actually make sense.  
  
“I’m taking care of it,” John said, and Mr. Smith left.  
  
That night, John put on his nicest shirt, then changed it to his second nicest shirt. In the mirror, he looked nervous and like he hadn’t been sleeping properly. His damned hand was shaking again when he brushed his teeth and combed his hair. He wished he would have had pockets where to hide his hands. He stared at himself in the mirror for a few more seconds, ruffled his hair and went to Sherlock.  
  
Sherlock was alone in his cabin, standing next to the bed with his hands on his hips, still wearing the suit. John waited as the door closed behind him, and then still didn’t know what to do. He folded his hands behind his back.  
  
“What’s wrong with your hair?” Sherlock asked.  
  
John cleared his throat. “What’s wrong with my hair?”  
  
“It’s not usually so…” Sherlock frowned. “…vertical.”  
  
“Oh,” John said and tried to flatten his hair. “I just… I combed it.”  
  
“And it ended up like that?”  
  
“Not exactly. I kind of… regretted combing it.”  
  
“Whatever it is that you’re doing now isn’t helping,” Sherlock said, watching him. “Maybe you should stop touching your hair.”  
  
“Yeah,” he said. Sherlock was probably right. He stopped touching his hair and grabbed his right wrist with his left hand instead. “So, you said that I could come.”  
  
“Yes,” Sherlock said. “To sleep in my bed and have sex.”  
  
John opened his mouth.  
  
“Probably not in that order.”  
  
John blinked. Sherlock looked around, then shrugged and started unbuttoning his shirt.  
  
John cleared his throat. “Hey –“  
  
“What?”  
  
“Stop that for a moment,” John said. Sherlock’s hands stopped. “Not that I wouldn’t like you to… not that I don’t want to see you naked, because obviously I do, but I just… what’re we doing?”  
  
He breathed in. Sherlock dropped his hands to the side and just stared at him, and he fought the urge to look away. He could hear his own breathing, and Sherlock’s, and his goddamn heart was beating heavily against his ribs.  
  
“I just said,” Sherlock said in a steady voice. “Have sex and sleep in the same bed.”  
  
John bit his lip. He wanted that. He wanted fucking everything, and normally he was pretty good at fooling himself but now it didn’t seem to be working for him anymore. He wanted Sherlock, because he _liked_ Sherlock, and it wasn’t about sex, or… Of course it was about sex, but only partly. It was only partly about the way Sherlock had come undone in John’s hands that first time, in the operating room, when what John had done to him had been wrong in so many levels it was difficult to grasp any of it. John wanted Sherlock to… to have that, but not on the operating table, no, _in bed_ , and with someone who was there for Sherlock, someone who wasn’t thinking about themselves for a change. He wanted to be that person for Sherlock. He wanted Sherlock to ask him to do it, to push his fingers inside, to touch Sherlock, to make Sherlock feel good in ways John couldn’t even imagine, or couldn’t have, if he hadn’t been able to see it on Sherlock’s face and hear in the noises Sherlock made and feel in the way Sherlock trembled under him, around him. He wanted that. _Fuck_ how much he wanted that, and he couldn’t even convince himself that he did not.  
  
But he also wanted to take Sherlock out of here, out of this whole fucked-up situation. He wanted this goddamn mission to end, he wanted to be on Earth again, he wanted to be in London, and he wanted Sherlock there with him. And most of all, John wanted Sherlock to never have to allow anyone to touch him if he didn’t want them to.  
  
“Perhaps you have changed your mind,” Sherlock said.  
  
John looked at him. “Oh, no, I was… no.”  
  
“No?”  
  
“I haven’t changed my mind,” John said. _Goddamn._ He had always been bad at this kind of conversations. “Can I sit?”  
  
“Yes,” Sherlock said.  
  
John sat down on the bed. “I like you.” He glanced at Sherlock and then at his own hands. They were steady for fucking once. “I like you a lot.” He rubbed his nose. “…Sherlock?”  
  
Sherlock cleared his throat. “I… thank you.”  
  
John bit his lip. “You’re welcome.”  
  
Sherlock frowned at him.  
  
“I don’t know what I’m doing here,” he said, “and I _know_ , have sex and sleep in the same bed, I know that’s what we talked about. But I mean… I don’t know what I’m doing here, on…”  
  
“On existential level,” Sherlock said, still frowning. “I can relate to that.”  
  
“Hmm,” John said. “Anyway, I just… I hate that you are… trapped like this. I absolutely hate it. I want you out. I want you… not to have to do this anymore.”  
  
“John,” Sherlock said, and now his voice was low and gentle, “you cannot save me.”  
  
John looked at the floor. _Fuck._ “It’s my job. Saving people is my job.”  
  
“I’m not _people._ As you know.”  
  
“Doesn’t matter. You’re a… a person. I should be able to… to do _something._ ”  
  
“You _are_ doing something,” Sherlock said. “But you cannot save me.”  
  
“Stop saying that.”  
  
“You aren’t listening.”  
  
“I have to _try._ ”  
  
“And what are you going to do? Hide me in your suitcase when we return to Earth?”  
  
John swallowed. “Maybe not in the suitcase.”  
  
“And what would we do, then? Would you take me to your home?”  
  
“Well,” John said, ignoring the sharp tone in Sherlock’s voice, “I don’t have anywhere to go, really. I’m going to have to rent a flat once I get back. We could share.”  
  
Sherlock glared at him, but coincidentally he was used to people glaring at him. He stood up.  
  
“We could be flatmates,” he said.  
  
“Flatmates –“  
  
“Yeah. Unless you think that we… that this thing, what we are doing… Maybe we could go on a date.”  
  
“A _date._ ”  
  
“With each other.”  
  
“I thought you said you weren’t gay.”  
  
“I thought so too.”  
  
“…and what are you going to say when people ask you about me? When they ask you why your boyfriend is a robot?”  
  
“They wouldn’t be able to tell.”  
  
“My face has been in the papers,” Sherlock said. “My body has been in the papers. I’m quite famous in the sex robot industry. _Experience sex with 221B – like a human, but better!_ ”  
  
John bit his lip. He had heard the jingle on the radio. “We can dye your hair.”  
  
“Into what?”  
  
“I don’t know, blond?”  
  
“I can’t be _blond._ I would look _ridiculous._ ”  
  
“Light brown then. Or fucking _green._ I don’t care. Or we can tell them that you look like… you, but that you’re actually not. We can tell them it’s a coincidence.”  
  
“John,” Sherlock said slowly, “that would never work.”  
  
“People see what they want to see,” John said. “They think you’re a robot because they want to treat you like a robot. Do you get older? Or do you stay like that forever?”  
  
“This is a human body,” Sherlock said, making a gesture at himself. “It ages. Somewhat slowly, because it’s a perfect human body. Very well planned. But it ages.”  
  
“So, we can grow old together,” John said, his voice coming out very dry. “And how about your… your brain?”  
  
Sherlock was staring at him. “I’m a computer. If no one reboots me, I’m going to gradually get slower. Because of the updates.”  
  
“The updates.”  
  
“For the operating system, yes.”  
  
“So, you’re going to get slower and I’m going to get slower. Sounds good.”  
  
“John –“  
  
“I mean,” John began and took a deep breath, “I mean, maybe you don’t want that. Maybe you don’t want to be with me. But I’m sure that you… that you want to be free of… all this. This… starship, and the… job, and…”  
  
“It’s not a job.”  
  
“No, I know, it’s… You want to be free, don’t you? It doesn’t make sense that you wouldn’t –“  
  
“Of course I want to be _free_ ,” Sherlock said in a thin voice. “But _freedom_ is a difficult concept. There are multiple ways to define _freedom._ ”  
  
“No, it’s not,” John said. “No one should make anyone do what we’re making you do.”  
  
Sherlock breathed out.  
  
“I want you to have a life,” John said. “A real life.”  
  
Sherlock looked away from him. “I believe Western philosophy hasn’t yet succeeded in trying to define _real life –_ “  
  
“Do you want to kiss me?”  
  
“…what?”  
  
“Do you want to kiss me?” John asked again. His voice was trembling. Everything in him was trembling. And he couldn’t read the way Sherlock was looking at him, not at all, and maybe that was because he wanted so badly for Sherlock to say yes. He couldn’t trust himself.  
  
“Yes,” Sherlock said.  
  
  
**  
  
  
“…Sherlock?”  
  
“John?”  
  
“Have you done this before?”  
  
Sherlock made an impatient noise. He was holding John’s face with both hands and the way he was poking at John with his fingers seemed to imply that maybe he was curious about John’s facial bone anatomy. But in a nice way.  
  
“I mean kissing,” John said. Oh, god, he should stop talking.  
  
“I have inserted my lips against someone else’s lips before, yes,” Sherlock said, stroking John’s forehead with his thumbs.  
  
“But not like this.”  
  
“It gives you sexual and emotional pleasure to think that you are the first person to participate in a particular sexual act with me,” Sherlock said. “That’s weird.”  
  
“I know,” John said, rose on his toes and kissed Sherlock on the mouth. “I’m sorry.”  
  
“Unnecessary,” Sherlock said against his mouth. “All human behaviour is weird at some level. Only the intensity of weirdness varies.”  
  
“ _You_ are weird,” John said and nudged his nose against Sherlock’s chin. Oh, god, he needed a box to stand on so that he could kiss Sherlock properly. “I like it.”  
  
“Illogical.”  
  
“Yeah. Yeah, I know. Sherlock?”  
  
“Yes?”  
  
“What do you want?” John asked. He took a deep breath and pulled away to give Sherlock some space. Sherlock’s hands dropped onto his shoulders. “From me. Now. Do you want to keep kissing? Do you want to go to bed? I’ll do anything you want. Just tell me.”  
  
“But you want something, too,” Sherlock said slowly, stroking John’s neck with his thumbs.  
  
“Yeah,” John said, “yeah, definitely. I want to give you whatever it is that you want.”  
  
Sherlock swallowed. John couldn’t believe he had had his mouth on that throat only a minute ago. “Okay.”  
  
“Okay?”  
  
“Will you undress for me?”  
  
John cleared his throat. “Yeah. Yeah, of course. I can do that. Now?”  
  
Sherlock nodded.  
  
“Great,” John said, breathed out and grabbed the hem of his shirt. “It’s just… I hope you realise that I’m not as pretty as you.”  
  
“If you are thinking about the scar,” Sherlock said, “I have seen it. There’s a picture in your file.”  
  
“A picture –“  
  
“Of you standing in your underwear in a very bright room. You look like you’re cold.”  
  
John swallowed.  
  
“I like the scar. It’s unique.”  
  
“You can’t _like_ the scar,” John said, then yanked his shirt over his head and dropped it on the floor.  
  
“The shuttle caught fire at the landing,” Sherlock said, staring at the scar on John’s shoulder. John fought the urge to touch it, maybe cover it with his palm, only it was bigger than his palm. “You rescued the pilot.”  
  
“Yeah,” John said, “it’s not like I regret it, of course not. Doesn’t make it less ugly.”  
  
“Can you feel it if I touch it?”  
  
“…yeah. It just feels different.”  
  
“Take your trousers off first,” Sherlock said.  
  
John did.  
  
“And underwear.”  
  
He did that.  
  
“Good,” Sherlock said, his eyes still on the scar. “Now, go to the bed. On your back. And don’t touch me.” He frowned. “Is that alright?”  
  
“Yes,” John said and did what he had been told. The mattress was soft and the sheets were cool. He took a deep breath, looking at the ceiling, but then Sherlock climbed onto him and it was impossible to look anywhere else. He clenched and unclenched his fists, willed himself to stay still, and ignored the heavy rhythm of his heart. Sherlock hovered over his face, but when he started thinking maybe he should say something, Sherlock leaned down and kissed him.  
  
It was so difficult not to touch Sherlock. He ended up twisting his hands in the sheets while Sherlock kissed down his neck and stopped at his throat, placed his hands there for a moment, almost as if he was testing John. John breathed in and out against Sherlock’s hands, and then Sherlock pulled his hands away but John’s heart didn’t get any lighter. Sherlock kissed him on the chest, leaned back, touched his nipple, pinched it, leaned down again, licked, kissed down on his stomach, then shifted and sat down on his thighs, locking them in place. John’s breaths sounded as if he had been running. Sherlock pressed his lips together and very slowly circled his fingers around John’s dick.  
  
John closed his eyes, then opened them again.  
  
“The first time,” Sherlock said, stroking John almost lazily, like he was just trying it out, not getting anywhere, “in the operating room. You were aroused.”  
  
John bit his lip hard. “Yeah. Sorry, I –“  
  
“But you ignored it.”  
  
“It wasn’t exactly good,” he said. Oh, god, he sounded fucking _broken_ , and there was nothing he could do about that, not when Sherlock tightened his grip and started stroking faster. “I shouldn’t have.”  
  
“You shouldn’t have –“  
  
“That was… that was fucking weird, Sherlock.”  
  
“But you liked it.”  
  
“Don’t say that,” John said, trying to breathe.  
  
“You didn’t want to,” Sherlock said, “you didn’t want to be physically attracted to me, because I’m a robot and you’re a human, and you were angry at yourself for failing to meet your own moral standards. Tell me I’m right.”  
  
“Yeah,” John said, “yeah, you’re right, I… But I was your doctor, too. I shouldn’t have… got off from it.”  
  
“You didn’t. You didn’t masturbate.”  
  
“Yeah, no, I didn’t, but it would’ve been…” _Oh, god._ He would open the zipper of his trousers, his fingers still inside Sherlock, and he’d take a firm grip on his own cock and stroke a few times, fast and hard, with Sherlock looking at him from the operating table, helpless from the way John was making him feel, shaking all over and absurdly beautiful… And John would say something like _it’s okay,_ and then, when Sherlock’s eyes flickered down to where John was holding his own cock, _keep your eyes on me_ , in the voice he used when he really needed a patient to listen, yeah, he would do that and Sherlock would go quiet except for the panting and the moaning, listening to John, _trusting_ John, trusting John to…  
  
“You could have done anything to me,” Sherlock said now, staring at John, “anything. No one would have blamed you for it.”  
  
John tried to breathe in and out. “Stop talking, just, _please_ –“  
  
“Why? You like my voice.”  
  
John laughed, only the sound broke off when Sherlock brushed his thumb over the tip of John’s cock. “Yeah,” John said, “yeah, that’s true, I like your voice, I like everything about you, but that’s… that’s not the point, you can _talk_ , just don’t… I don’t want to hate myself when you’re… doing this to me.”  
  
“Are you close?”  
  
“…yeah.”  
  
“Good,” Sherlock said and sped up his hand. “I don’t need you to hate yourself. I don’t want you to. I forbid it.”  
  
“Sherlock –“ Oh, _shit_ , he was close, he was so close, he was so fucking close to coming, and he couldn’t think about anything else, not the fucking rotten thing inside of him that had enjoyed what he had done to Sherlock, that had wanted more, no, he was pretty sure he would think about it again later and feel like shit, but now he couldn’t think about anything besides Sherlock, Sherlock who was _right here_ and watching him as if he was entertaining, or amusing, or just a little bit strange, but in a good way, and it was lovely, he liked it, he definitely liked it, and he wanted to -  
  
“You can ejaculate now,” Sherlock said.  
  
John laughed, and came.  
  
  
**  
  
  
“Hey,” Sherlock said.  
  
John breathed in. His left hand was going numb and his right wrist was aching like hell and he had a feeling that he had never before been this happy or this sad. He had two fingers inside Sherlock, and with his right hand, he was stroking Sherlock’s dick as slowly as he could, because it was good, he knew it was good because Sherlock was looking straight at him and he could see it written all over Sherlock’s face.  
  
“Hey,” Sherlock said again, “John?”  
  
John shifted on the mattress, brushing his knees against Sherlock’s thighs. Sherlock’s chest was rising and falling with his breathing and he had been trembling for a while now. “Yeah?”  
  
“Can you kiss me now?”  
  
“Maybe,” John said. “I’m not very flexible. But I’ll try.”  
  
He didn’t manage it. The best he could do was to kiss Sherlock on the temple. Sherlock wriggled closer to him and hid his face in the crook of John’s neck, and John pushed his nose against Sherlock’s hair and thought that his goddamn wrist was going to kill him. But it was worth it. It was fucking worth it and would be worth it every time.  
  
“John?”  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“Now,” Sherlock said against his neck, shaking all over and dripping onto John’s fingers. “ _Now._ Tell me to come.”  
  
“I want you to come now,” John said and kissed the top of Sherlock’s head. “Now, darling.”  
  
  
**  
  
  
John Watson was fucking ruined. He knew it. He fucking knew it. The last time he had been in love had been in 2087 and that had ended very badly. After the break-up, he had become obsessed in running and had only stopped when he had hurt both his knees bad enough that he had had to use crutches for two months. He couldn’t let that happen again. He was almost forty years old and his knees were bad already, especially the left one which had never fully recovered from the marathon madness which was what he liked to call it instead of a broken heart.  
  
Falling in love was dangerous. It was dangerous, possibly lethal, and he knew it, and still he hadn’t been able to stop it from happening. He was a goddamn idiot.  
  
He walked to the sickbay smiling like an idiot, took a shower, combed his hair, had a cup of coffee and chatted with one of the nurses about her cats and the videos she sent them to make them remember her. Then there was a broken toe, a flu, and problems with digestion. Once or twice he realised he was humming, but he was very subtle about it, so maybe no one noticed.  
  
Then Mr. Smith walked in, told John that he had seen Sherlock’s usage reports, and that John was banned from treating _or_ using Sherlock from now on.


End file.
